All now had their eyes and ears turned to the stage, all but one: Padre Salvi, who seemed to have gone there for no other purpose than that of watching Maria Clara, whose sadness gave to her beauty an air so ideal and interesting that it was easy to understand how she might be looked upon with rapture.

But the eyes of the Franciscan, deeply hidden in their sunken sockets, spoke nothing of rapture.

In that gloomy gaze was to be read something desperately sad--with such eyes Cain might have gazed from afar on the Paradise whose delights his mother pictured to him! The first scene was over when Ibarra entered.

His appearance caused a murmur, and attention was fixed on him and the curate.

But the young man seemed not to notice anything as he greeted Maria Clara and her friends in a natural way and took a seat beside them.
The only one who spoke to him was Sinang.