She felt certain that whatever the Church once grasped in its iron hand, it would ever retain.

And both to Isabel and herself the thought of a convent was now horrible.

"They will force me to be a nun," said Isabel; "and then, what will Luis do?
And they will never tell me anything about my father and my brothers.

I should never hear of them.

I should never see them any more; unless the good God was so kind as to let me meet them in his heaven." And Antonia had still darker and more fearful thoughts.