The door opened to admit, not Mademoiselle, but Don Victoriano. There was nothing to surprise her in his appearance; he slept in a sort of cabinet near his wife's room and separated from it by a passageway, and every night before retiring he gave a kiss to the child, whose bed was beside her mother's; nevertheless Nieves felt a chill creep over her, and she instinctively turned her back to the light, coughing to hide her agitation.
The truth was that Don Victoriano looked very serious, even stern. He had not indeed been very cheerful or communicative ever since his illness had assumed a serious character; but in addition to his air of dejection there was an indefinable something, a darker gloom on his face than usual, a cloud pregnant with storm. Nieves, observing that he did not approach the child's bed, cast down her eyes and affected to be occupied in smoothing her hair with the ivory comb.
"How do you feel, child? Have you recovered from your fright?" asked her husband.
"No; I am still a little----I have asked for some lime tea."
"See, Nieves, we must go to Madrid at once."
"No, the thing is that it is necessary, indispensable. I must put myself seriously under treatment, child; for if things continue as they are now it will soon be all over with me. I had the weakness to put myself in the hands of that ass, Don Fermin. God forgive me for it! and I fear," he added, smiling bitterly, "that I have made a fatal mistake. Let us see if Sanchez del Abrojo will get me out of the scrape--I doubt it greatly."
"Heavens, how apprehensive you are!" exclaimed Nieves, breathing freely once more and availing herself of the resource offered to her by Don Victoriano's illness. "Anyone would think you had an incurable disease. When you are once in Madrid and Sanchez has you under his care--in a couple of months you will not even remember this trifling indisposition."
"Bravo! child, bravo! I don't wish to hurt your feelings or to seem unkind, but what you say proves that you neither look at me, nor care a straw about my health, nor pay any attention to me whatever, which--forgive me--is not creditable to you. My disease is a serious, a very serious one--it is a disease that carries people off in fine style. I am being converted into sugar, my sight is failing, my head aches, I have no blood left, and you, serene and gay, sporting about like a child. A wife who loved her husband would not act in this way. You have troubled yourself neither about the state of my body nor the state of my mind. You are enjoying yourself, having a fine time, and as for the rest--a great deal it matters to you!"