"
"Did you hear anything of my mother?" the girl asked.
"No; my Portuguese was not good enough for me to ask questions without
risking being detected as a foreigner at once. She has behaved shamefully
to you, Mary."
"She never liked me," the girl said, simply. "She and father never got on
well together, and I think her dislike began by his taking to me, and my
liking to be with him and getting to talk English. There was a terrible
quarrel between them once because she accused him of teaching me to be a
Protestant, although he never did so. He did give me a Bible, and I used
to ask him questions and he answered them, that was all; but as it did
seem to me that he was much wiser in all things than she was, I thought
that he might be wiser in religion too. I would have given up the property
directly they wanted me to, if they would have let me go away to England;
but when they took me to the convent and cut off my hair, and forced me to
become a nun, I would not give way to them. I never took the vows,
Terence; I would not open my lips, but they went on with the service just
the same. I was determined that I would not yield. I thought that the
English would come some day, and that I might be freed then."
"What would you have done in England if you had gone there, Mary?"
"I should have found your father out, and gone to him.
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