"She's gone in, let us go too," said the sisters, and they followed her.
Sisa felt her heart beat violently. She did not know what to say to the curate in defence of her child. She had risen at daybreak, picked all the fine vegetables left in her garden, and arranged them in a basket with platane leaves and flowers, and had been to the river to get a fresh salad of pakô. Then, dressed in the best she had, the basket on her head, without waking her son, she had set out for the pueblo.
She went slowly through the manse, listening if by chance she might hear a well-known voice, fresh and childish. But she met no one, heard nothing, and went on to the kitchen.
The servants and sacristans received her coldly, scarcely answering her greetings.
"Where may I put these vegetables?" she asked, without showing offence.
"There--wherever you want to," replied the cook curtly.
Sisa, half-smiling, placed all in order on the table, and laid on top the flowers and the tender shoots of the pakô; then she asked a servant who seemed more friendly than the cook:
"Do you know if Crispin is in the sacristy?"
"Crispin?" said he, wrinkling his brows; "isn't he at home?"
"Oh, yes, he stayed, but he ran off afterward with all sorts of things he'd stolen. The curate sent me to report it at the quarters. The guards must be on their way to your house by this time."
Sisa could not believe it; she opened her mouth, but her lips moved in vain.
"Go find your children," said the cook. "Everybody sees you're a faithful woman; the children are like their father!"
Sisa stifled a sob, and, at the end of her strength, sat down.
"Don't cry here," said the cook still more roughly, "the curate is ill; don't bother him! Go cry in the street!"
The poor woman got up, almost by force, and went down the steps with the sisters, who were still gossiping of the curate's illness. Once on the street she looked about uncertain; then, as if from a sudden resolution, moved rapidly away.
The lake, girt with hills, lies tranquil, as if it had not been shaken by yesterday's tempest. At the first gleam of light which wakes the phosphorescent spirits of the water, almost on the bounds of the horizon, gray silhouettes slowly take shape. These are the barks of fishermen drawing in their nets; cascos and paraos shaking out their sails.