"To marry when one's first fiance is going to be hung!" "That is what is called prudent; having a substitute at hand." "Then, when one becomes a widow----" Possibly some of these remarks reached the ears of Maria Clara. She grew paler, her hand trembled, her lips seemed to move. In the circles of men the talk was loud, and naturally the recent events were the subject of conversation. Everybody talked, even Don Tiburcio. "I hear that your reverence is about to leave the pueblo," said the new lieutenant, whom his new star had made more amiable. "I have no more to do there; I am to be placed permanently at Manila. And you?" asked Father Salvi. "I also leave the pueblo," said he, throwing back his shoulders; "I am going with a flying column to rid the province of filibusters." Father Salvi surveyed his old enemy from top to toe, and turned away with a disdainful smile. "Is it known certainly what is to be done with the chief filibuster?" asked a clerk. "You are speaking of Don Crisostomo Ibarra," replied another. "It is very probable that he will be hung, like those of 1872, and it will be very just." "He is to be exiled," said the old lieutenant dryly. "Exile! Nothing but exile?" cried numerous voices at once. "Then it must be for life!" "If the young man had been more prudent," went on Lieutenant Guevara, speaking so that all might hear, "if he had confided less in certain persons to whom he wrote, if our attorney-generals did not interpret too subtly what they read, it is certain he would have been released." This declaration of the old lieutenant's, and the tone of his voice, produced a great surprise among his auditors. No one knew what to say. Father Salvi looked away, perhaps to avoid the dark look the lieutenant gave him. Maria Clara dropped some flowers she had in her hand, and became a statue. Father Sibyla, who knew when to be silent, seemed the only one who knew how to question. "You speak of letters, Senor Guevara." "I speak of what I am told by Don Crisostomo's advocate, who is greatly interested in his case, and defended him with zeal. Outside of a few ambiguous lines in a letter addressed to a woman before he left for Europe, in which the procurator found a project against the Government, and which the young man acknowledged as his, there was no evidence against him." "And the declaration made by the tulisan before he died?" "The defence destroyed that testimony. According to the witness himself, none of them had any communication with Ibarra, except one named Jose, who was his enemy, as was proven, and who afterward committed suicide, probably from remorse. It was shown that the papers found on his body were forgeries, for the writing was like Ibarra's seven years ago, but not like his hand of to-day. For this it was supposed that the accusing letter served as a model." "You tell us," said a Franciscan, "that Ibarra addressed this letter to a woman. How did it come into the hands of the attorney-general?"