"My poor girl," she began, "you were to have been married, they tell me, to the man who was found dead at the entrance to the prison, last night.... I wonder if I happened to know him ... what was his name?" She had asked the question idly, wishing only to engage the girl in conversation to find out whatever she could. "My lover was a wonderful man ..." declared Estrella; "he was not a common man at all ... he was superior to all the men I know or ever have known ... he was the handsomest as well as the most intelligent man among the whole people of this Island, I think.... I know I never saw anyone either so handsome or so smart as was my dear Victorio.... I don't suppose you would ever have met him for he was not a servant and yet he was a Cuban ... he was a wonderful man and I was to have been his wife and he was most foully murdered there in that hateful prison." And the poor bereft creature began to moan and sob and wring her hands in agony of spirit. This was not at all what Mage desired to do ... to get the girl all wrought up before her young lady even saw her, so she tried to comfort and calm her by speaking rather sharply to her as she knew hysteria can only be overcome by the application of fierce remedies, or, at least, that is what she had been taught, so, in order to cauterize the wound her words seemed to have made, she said: "You say your lover was a superior man ... was he, then, a leader among the political prisoners who were liberated?" "Indeed he was ..." proudly answered the bereaved girl. "Victorio Colenzo was a leader where-ever he went ... why ..." But even her pride in her dead lover did not hide from her the effect his name had had on poor old Mage for she had crumpled down in her chair as if she had received a stroke of some kind and seemed as if paralyzed, for her poor old mouth fell open, revealing its entire innocence of teeth; she gasped for breath for a moment and then demanded: "Say that name again! What kind of looking man was he?" Hastening to comply with the demand made on her, the girl proceeded, proudly: "His name was Victorio Colenzo and he was the handsomest man in the whole of Cuba, I believe ... his eyes were very dark and expressive and his hair was the very most beautiful curly hair that ever grew on any human head ... he was tall and strong and handsome in every way and, yet," she ended dreamily, "and, yet, he never loved a woman in his life before he found me." Old Mage had other words upon her lips than those which she said after having hauled herself up sharply, remembering how unprotected her dear young lady was and wishing, above all else, even her own almost insatiable curiosity, to shield her from any harm: