She felt instinctively that this yellowish envelope, with its red string and its blotch of red seal, was his sentence and her own.

The little mestiza had not been brought up to respect the integrity of either locks or seals, both being unknown in the patriarchal life of the hacienda.

Yet with a certain feminine instinct she looked furtively around her, and even managed to dislodge the clumsy wax without marring the pretty effigy of the crossed keys impressed upon it.

Then she opened the letter and read.
Suddenly she stopped and put back her hair from her brown temples.

Then a succession of burning blushes followed each other in waves from her neck up, and died in drops of moisture in her eyes.