cell with Don Abrahan. You can exchange confidences there, Doña Carlota."
"I—but, Helena, in prison there are rats!"
"Yes, and there is remorse, and there is penitence, three things that you could suffer with profit to your body and soul, Doña Carlota."
"Ah, you call me only Doña Carlota; you forget the tender tie of blood. But you jest, Helena; you do not mean for me to seek a safe place in prison. There must be another place—here, here with you, my little Helena—Iet me remain."
"It is impossible, Doña Carlota."
Helena was unmoved by the plea of blood, by the quaking cowardice of the weak creature who had betrayed her.
"There is no shelter; they will tear holes in the house with the cannon," Doña Carlota moaned.
"Try the houses of the poor; they are safe from the cannon," Helena suggested. "If there is one that remembers a kindness at your hands, there you will find a friend."
Doña Carlota stood looking into her niece's face with appealing eyes. She saw only denial there, the unforgiving coldness of distrust. The fear that Helena would disclose her treachery to Gabriel Henderson grew in her like the infection of a foul disease. As the small in kindness, the narrow in benevolence, the niggard in generosity invariably judge, she measured Helena's thoughts by her own, unable to see that her punishment lay only in the young woman's distrust and denial of her.
