A distant sound became audible, a noise that rapidly
approached. Isagani turned his head and his heart began to beat
violently. A carriage was coming, drawn by white horses, the white
horses that he would know among a hundred thousand. In the carriage
rode Paulita and her friend of the night before, with Doña Victorina.

Before the young man could take a step, Paulita had leaped to the
ground with sylph-like agility and smiled at him with a smile full of
conciliation. He smiled in return, and it seemed to him that all the
clouds, all the black thoughts that before had beset him, vanished
like smoke, the sky lighted up, the breeze sang, flowers covered the
grass by the roadside. But unfortunately Doña Victorina was there and
she pounced upon the young man to ask him for news of Don Tiburcio,
since Isagani had undertaken to discover his hiding-place by inquiry
among the students he knew.

"No one has been able to tell me up to now," he answered, and he was
telling the truth, for Don Tiburcio was really hidden in the house
of the youth's own uncle, Padre Florentino.

"Let him know," declared Doña Victorina furiously, "that I'll call in
the Civil Guard. Alive or dead, I want to know where he is--because
one has to wait ten years before marrying again."

Isagani gazed at her in fright--Doña Victorina was thinking of
remarrying! Who could the unfortunate be?

"What do you think of Juanito Pelaez?" she asked him suddenly.