The tongues clacked up and down the by-ways: What was the rich man's interest in the poor one? the professional man's in the mechanic? the man of society in the man unknown? Then it was true, eh? that the mulatto (for Guayos was a "yellow man") had spoken to the lawyer familiarly in the street in presence of ladies and officers? Maybe. The laundress at the second house down the street had said so, but, fie! it was only on a matter of business. Tut! Business was no excuse, considering that Don Alonzo was of Spanish parentage, while the other had been nothing but a Cuban for two centuries. To forget this breach or try to bridge it, to presume on the tolerance of an occasional employer, unless one were a slave or a servant and used to indulgence--that was not to be forgiven. A rumor that travelled more quietly was that Morelos himself was a revolutionary and had caused this arrest as a blind, or in order to silence a tongue that might speak damage. A third rumor, that went in a whisper, and so went farther than the others, said that the yellow man had a pretty wife, and that the lawyer had been seen to call at the little house in the master's absence. This tale seemed to be doubted, for the wife of the butcher gave it as her opinion that the Senora Guayos was too rusty of complexion to be pleasing, and the Senor Morelos was so faultless in his appearance and his taste; the club steward's unmarried sister declared the senora's manners to be rustic and her voice loud; the woman in the carpenter's family would lend no ear to such a scandal because the subject of it was dumpy, shapeless, and dressed absurdly, even for the wife of a stonemason. Howbeit, the little woman was now in grief, for her husband lay in jail awaiting trial on the gravest charge that could be brought against a Cuban,--the charge of treason. In that day, as on many sad days that were to follow, to be charged with disaffection toward the crown was virtually to be sentenced to death.