It was Father Pedro's letter to the Father Superior of San Jose.
In an instant she had pounced upon it as viciously as if it had been the interloper she was seeking.

She knew that she held in her fingers the secret of Francisco's sudden banishment.

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 _mestizo_, 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.