Act II opens with the sisters busily at work sewing and embroidering. Angustias, Magdalena, Martirio, and Amelia sit together and work while La Poncia entertains them with colorful stories. Adela is absent, offstage in her room. The others call repeatedly for her to join them until she relents, bemoaning how no one will let her be. The Servant enters to call everyone but Adela and La Poncia away, leaving the two alone. After some prying from La Poncia, Adela confesses that she’s attracted to Pepe el Romano; she has been staying awake each night to visit with him once he has finished talking with Angustias at her window. La Poncia does her best to talk Adela into seeing sense, even going so far as to assure her that the sickly Angustias will die in childbirth and leave Pepe free to marry again, but she will not listen, saying ominously, “No one can stop what has to happen” (183).

The others return with deliveries of more material, and “[t]iny bells are heard distantly as though through several thicknesses of wall” (184). La Poncia explains that the “reapers” have arrived; “forty or fifty handsome young men […] from far, far away” (184-85).