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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Velvet Glove, by Henry Seton Merriman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Velvet Glove
+
+Author: Henry Seton Merriman
+
+Release Date: November 30, 2003 [EBook #10342]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VELVET GLOVE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Robert Prince, and
+the Online Distributed Proofresding Team
+
+
+
+
+
+THE VELVET GLOVE
+
+By
+
+Henry Seton Merriman
+(HUGH STOWELL SCOTT)
+
+
+
+Contents:
+
+I. IN THE CITY OF THE WINDS
+II. EVASIO MON
+III. WITHIN THE HIGH WALLS
+IV. THE JADE--CHANCE
+V. A PILGRIMAGE
+VI. PILGRIMS
+VII. THE ALTERNATIVE
+VIII. THE TRAIL
+IX. THE QUARRY
+X. THISBE
+XI. THE ROYAL ADVENTURE
+XII. IN A STRONG CITY
+XIII. THE GRIP OF THE VELVET GLOVE
+XIV. IN THE CLOISTER
+XV. OUR LADY OF THE SHADOWS
+XVI. THE MATTRESS BEATER
+XVII. AT THE INN OF THE TWO TREES
+XVIII. THE MAKERS OF HISTORY
+XIX. COUSIN PELIGROS
+XX. AT TORRE GARDA
+XXI. JUANITA GROWS UP
+XXII. AN ACCIDENT
+XXIII. KIND INQUIRIES
+XXIV. THE STORMY PETREL
+XXV. WAR'S ALARM
+XXVI. AT THE FORD
+XXVII. IN THE CLOUDS
+XXVIII. LE GANT DE VELOURS
+XXIX. LA MAIN DE FER
+XXX. THE CASTING VOTE
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations:
+"'ARE YOU SURE YOU HAVE NOT HEARD FROM PAPA?'"
+"A MOMENT LATER THE TRAVELER WAS LYING THERE ALONE."
+"ALL TURNED AND LOOKED AT HIM IN WONDER."
+"'DO YOU INTEND TO PUNISH YOUR FATHER'S ASSASSINS?'"
+"MARCOS WAS ESSENTIALLY A MAN OF HIS WORD."
+"THE DOOR WAS OPENED BY A STOUT MONK."
+"'HE IS NOT KILLED,' SAID MARCOS, BREATHLESSLY."
+"HE LEFT JUANITA ALONE WITH MARCOS."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+IN THE CITY OF THE WINDS
+The Ebro, as all the world knows--or will pretend to know, being an
+ignorant and vain world--runs through the city of Saragossa. It is a
+river, moreover, which should be accorded the sympathy of this
+generation, for it is at once rapid and shallow.
+
+On one side it is bordered by the wall of the city. The left bank is low
+and sandy, liable to flood; a haunt of lizards in the summer, of frogs in
+winter-time. The lower bank is bordered by poplar trees, and here and
+there plots of land have been recovered from the riverbed for tillage and
+the growth of that harsh red wine which seems to harden and thicken the
+men of Aragon.
+
+One night, when a half moon hung over the domes of the Cathedral of the
+Pillar, a man made his way through the undergrowth by the riverside and
+stumbled across the shingle towards the open shed which marks the
+landing-place of the only ferry across the Ebro that Saragossa possesses.
+The ferry-boat was moored to the landing-stage. It is a high-prowed,
+high-sterned vessel, built on Viking lines, from a picture the observant
+must conclude, by a landsman carpenter. It swings across the river on a
+wire rope, with a running tackle, by the force of the stream and the aid
+of a large rudder.
+
+The man looked cautiously into the vine-clad shed. It was empty. He crept
+towards the boat and found no one there. Then he examined the chain that
+moored it. There was no padlock. In Spain to this day they bar the window
+heavily and leave the door open. To the cunning mind is given in this
+custom the whole history of a great nation.
+
+He stood upright and looked across the river. He was a tall man with a
+clean cut face and a hard mouth. He gave a sharp sigh as he looked at
+Saragossa outlined against the sky. His attitude and his sigh seemed to
+denote along journey accomplished at last, an object attained perhaps or
+within reach, which is almost the same thing, but not quite. For most men
+are happier in striving than in possession. And no one has yet decided
+whether it is better to be among the lean or the fat.
+
+Don Francisco de Mogente sat down on the bench provided for those that
+await the ferry, and, tilting back his hat, looked up at the sky. The
+northwest wind was blowing--the Solano--as it only blows in Aragon. The
+bridge below the ferry has, by the way, a high wall on the upper side of
+it to break this wind, without which no cart could cross the river at
+certain times of the year. It came roaring down the Ebro, bending the
+tall poplars on the lower bank, driving before it a cloud of dust on the
+Saragossa side. It lashed the waters of the river to a gleaming white
+beneath the moon. And all the while the clouds stood hard and sharp of
+outline in the sky. They hardly seemed to move towards the moon. They
+scarcely changed their shape from hour to hour. This was not a wind of
+heaven, but a current rushing down from the Pyrenees to replace the hot
+air rising from the plains of Aragon.
+
+Nevertheless, the clouds were moving towards the moon, and must soon hide
+it. Don Francisco de Mogente observed this, and sat patiently beneath the
+trailing vines, noting their slow approach. He was a white-haired man,
+and his face was burnt a deep brown. It was an odd face, and the
+expression of the eyes was not the usual expression of an old man's eyes.
+They had the agricultural calm, which is rarely seen in drawing-rooms.
+For those who deal with nature rarely feel calm in a drawing-room. They
+want to get out of it, and their eyes assume a hunted look. This seemed
+to be a man who had known both drawing-room and nature; who must have
+turned quietly and deliberately to nature as the better part. The
+wrinkles on his face were not those of the social smile, which so
+disfigure the faces of women when the smile is no longer wanted. They
+were the wrinkles of sunshine.
+
+"I will wait," he said placidly to himself in English, with, however, a
+strong American accent. "I have waited fifteen years--and she doesn't
+know I am coming."
+
+He sat looking across the river with quiet eyes. The city lay before him,
+with the spire of its unmatched cathedral, the domes of its second
+cathedral, and its many towers outlined against the sky just as he had
+seen them fifteen years before--just as others had seen them a hundred
+years earlier.
+
+The great rounded cloud was nearer to the moon now. Now it touched it.
+And quite suddenly the domes disappeared. Don Francisco de Mogente rose
+and went towards the boat. He did not trouble to walk gently or to loosen
+the chains noiselessly. The wind was roaring so loudly that a listener
+twenty yards away could have heard nothing. He cast off and then hastened
+to the stern of the boat. The way in which he handled the helm showed
+that he knew the tricks of the old ferryman by wind and calm, by high and
+low river. He had probably learnt them with the photographic accuracy
+only to be attained when the mind is young.
+
+The boat swung out into the river with an odd jerking movement, which the
+steersman soon corrected. And a man who had been watching on the bridge
+half a mile farther down the river hurried into the town. A second
+watcher at an open window in the tall house next to the Posada de los
+Reyes on the Paseo del Ebro closed his field-glasses with a thoughtful
+smile.
+
+It seemed that Don Francisco de Mogente had purposely avoided crossing
+the bridge, where to this day the night watchman, with lantern and spear,
+peeps cautiously to and fro--a startlingly mediaeval figure. It seemed
+also that the traveler was expected, though he had performed the last
+stage of his journey on foot after nightfall.
+
+It is characteristic of this country that Saragossa should be guarded
+during the day by the toll-takers at every gate, by sentries, and by the
+new police, while at night the streets are given over to the care of a
+handful of night watchmen, who call monotonously to each other all
+through the hours, and may be avoided by the simplest-minded of
+malefactors.
+
+Don Francisco de Mogente brought the ferry-boat gently alongside the
+landing-stage beneath the high wall of the Quay, and made his way through
+the underground passage and up the dirty steps that lead into one of the
+narrow streets of the old town.
+
+The moon had broken through the clouds again and shone down upon the
+barred windows. The traveler stood still and looked about him. Nothing
+had changed since he had last stood there. Nothing had changed just here
+for five hundred years or so; for he could not see the domes of the
+Cathedral of the Pillar, comparatively modern, only a century old.
+
+Don Francisco de Mogente had come from the West; had known the newness of
+the new generation. And he stood for a moment as if in a dream, breathing
+in the tainted air of narrow, undrained streets; listening to the cry of
+the watchman slowly dying as the man walked away from him on sandaled,
+noiseless feet; gazing up at the barred windows, heavily shadowed. There
+was an old world stillness in the air, and suddenly the bells of fifty
+churches tolled the hour. It was one o'clock in the morning. The traveler
+had traveled backwards, it would seem, into the middle ages. As he heard
+the church bells he gave an angry upward jerk of the head, as if the
+sound confirmed a thought that was already in his mind. The bells seemed
+to be all around him; the towers of the churches seemed to dominate the
+sleeping city on every side. There was a distinct smell of incense in the
+air of these narrow streets, where the winds of the outer world rarely
+found access.
+
+The traveler knew his way, and hurried down a narrow turning to the left,
+with the Cathedral of the Pillar between him and the river. He had made a
+dé tour in order to avoid the bridge and the Paseo del Ebro, a broad
+road on the river bank. In these narrow streets he met no one. On the
+Paseo there are several old inns, notably the Posada de los Reyes, used
+by muleteers and other gentlemen of the road, who arise and start at any
+hour of the twenty-four and in summer travel as much by night as by day.
+At the corner, where the bridge abuts on the Paseo, there is always a
+watchman at night, while by day there is a guard. It is the busiest and
+dustiest corner in the city.
+
+Francisco de Mogente crossed a wide street, and again sought a dark
+alley. He passed by the corner of the Cathedral of the Pillar, and went
+towards the other and infinitely grander Cathedral of the Seo. Beyond
+this, by the riverside, is the palace of the archbishop. Farther on is
+another palace, standing likewise on the Paseo del Ebro, backing likewise
+on to a labyrinth of narrow streets. It is called the Palacio Sarrion,
+and belongs to the father and son of that name.
+
+It seemed that Francisco de Mogente was going to the Palacio Sarrion; for
+he passed the great door of the archbishop's dwelling, and was already
+looking towards the house of the Sarrions, when a slight sound made him
+turn on his heels with the rapidity of one whose life had been passed
+amid dangers--and more especially those that come from behind.
+
+There were three men coming from behind now, running after him on
+sandaled feet, and before he could do so much as raise his arm the moon
+broke out from behind a cloud and showed a gleam of steel. Don Francisco
+de Mogente was down on the ground in an instant, and the three men fell
+upon him like dogs on a rat. One knife went right through him, and grated
+with a harsh squeak on the cobble-stones beneath.
+
+
+A moment later the traveler was lying there alone, half in the shadow,
+his dusty feet showing whitely in the moonlight. The three shadows had
+vanished as softly as they came.
+
+Almost instantly from, strangely enough, the direction in which they had
+gone the burly form of a preaching friar came out into the light. He was
+walking hurriedly, and would seem to be returning from some mission of
+mercy, or some pious bedside to one of the many houses of religion
+located within a stone's throw of the Cathedral of the Seo in one of the
+narrow streets of this quarter of the city. The holy man almost fell over
+the prostrate form of Don Francisco de Mogente.
+
+"Ah! ah!" he exclaimed in an even and quiet voice. "A calamity."
+
+"No," answered the wounded man with a cynicism which even the near sight
+of death seemed powerless to effect. "A crime."
+
+"You are badly hurt, my son."
+
+"Yes; you had better not try to lift me, though you are a strong man."
+
+"I will go for help," said the monk.
+
+"Lay help," suggested the wounded man curtly. But the friar was already
+out of earshot.
+
+In an astonishingly short space of time the friar returned, accompanied
+by two men, who had the air of indoor servants and the quiet movements of
+street-bred, roof-ridden humanity.
+
+Mindful of his cloth, the friar stood aside, unostentatiously and firmly
+refusing to take the lead even in a mission of mercy. He stood with
+humbly-folded hands and a meek face while the two men lifted Don
+Francisco de Mogente on to a long narrow blanket, the cloak of Navarre
+and Aragon, which one of them had brought with him.
+
+They bore him slowly away, and the friar lingered behind. The moon shone
+down brightly into the narrow street and showed a great patch of blood
+amid the cobblestones. In Saragossa, as in many Spanish cities, certain
+old men are employed by the municipal authorities to sweep the dust of
+the streets into little heaps. These heaps remain at the side of the
+streets until the dogs and the children and the four winds disperse the
+dust again. It is a survival of the middle ages, interesting enough in
+its bearing upon the evolution of the modern municipal authority and the
+transmission of intellectual gifts.
+
+The friar looked round him, and had not far to look. There was a dust
+heap close by. He plunged his large brown hands into it, and with a few
+quick movements covered all traces of the calamity of which he had so
+nearly been a witness.
+
+Then, with a quick, meek look either way, he followed the two men, who
+had just disappeared round a corner. The street, which, by the way, is
+called the Calle San Gregorio, was, of course, deserted; the tall houses
+on either side were closely shuttered. Many of the balconies bore a
+branch of palm across the iron railings, the outward sign of priesthood.
+For the cathedral clergy live here. And, doubtless, the holy men within
+had been asleep many hours.
+
+Across the end of the Calle San Gregorio, and commanding that narrow
+street, stood the Palacio Sarrion--an empty house the greater part of the
+year--a vast building, of which the windows increased in size as they
+mounted skywards. There were wrought-iron balconies, of which the window
+embrasures were so deep that the shutters folded sideways into the wall
+instead of swinging back as in houses of which the walls were of normal
+thickness.
+
+The friar was probably accustomed to seeing the Palacio Sarrion rigidly
+shut up. He never, in his quick, humble scrutiny of his surroundings
+glanced up at it. And, therefore, he never saw a man sitting quietly
+behind the curiously wrought railings, smoking a cigarette--a man who had
+witnessed the whole incident from beginning to end. Who had, indeed, seen
+more than the friar or the two quiet men-servants. For he had seen a
+stick--probably a sword-stick, such as nearly every Spanish gentleman
+carries in his own country--fly from the hand of Don Francisco de Mogente
+at the moment when he was attacked, and fall into the gutter on the
+darker side of the street, where it lay unheeded. Where, indeed, it still
+remained when the friar with his swinging gait had turned the corner of
+the Calle San Gregorio.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+EVASIO MON
+There are some people whose presence in a room seems to establish a
+mental centre of gravity round which other minds hover uneasily,
+conscious of the dead weight of that attraction.
+
+"I have known Evasio all my life," the Count de Sarrion once said to his
+son. "I have stood at the edge of that pit and looked in. I do not know
+to this day whether there is gold at the bottom or mud. I have never
+quarreled with him, and, therefore, we have never made it up."
+
+Which, perhaps, was as good a description of Evasio Mon as any man had
+given. He had never quarreled with any one. He was, in consequence, a
+lonely man. For the majority of human beings are gregarious. They meet
+together in order to quarrel. The majority of women prefer to sit and
+squabble round one table to seeking another room. They call it the
+domestic circle, and spend their time in straining at the family tie in
+order to prove its strength.
+
+It was Evasio Mon who, standing at the open window of his apartment in
+the tall house next door to the Posada de los Reyes on the Paseo del
+Ebro, had observed with the help of a field-glass, that a traveler was
+crossing the river by the ferry-boat after midnight. He noted the unusual
+proceeding with a tolerant shrug. It will be remembered that he closed
+his glasses with a smile--not a smile of amusement or of contempt--not
+even a deep smile such as people wear in books. It was merely a smile,
+and could not be construed into anything else by any physiognomist. The
+wrinkles that made it were deeply marked, which suggested that Evasio Mon
+had learnt to smile when he was quite young. He had, perhaps, been
+taught.
+
+And, after all, a man may as well show a smile to the world as a worried
+look, or a mean look, or one of the countless casts of countenance that
+are moulded by conceit and vanity. A smile is frequently misconstrued by
+the simple-hearted into the outward sign of inward kindness. Many think
+that it conciliates children and little dogs. But that which the many
+think is usually wrong.
+
+If Evasio Mon's face said anything at all, it warned the world that it
+had to deal with a man of perfect self-control. And the man who controls
+himself is usually able to control just so much of his surrounding world
+as may suit his purpose.
+
+There was something in the set of this man's eyes which suggested no easy
+victory over self. For his eyes were close together. His hair was almost
+red. His face was rather narrow and long. It was not the face of an
+easy-going man as God had made it. But years had made it the face of a
+man that nothing could rouse. He was of medium height, with rather narrow
+shoulders, but upright and lithe. He was clean shaven and of a pleasant
+ruddiness. His eyes were a bluish gray, and looked out upon the world
+with a reflective attention through gold-rimmed eye-glasses, with which
+he had a habit of amusing himself while talking, examining their
+mechanism and the knot of the fine black cord with a bat-like air of
+blindness.
+
+In body and mind he seemed to be almost a young man. But Ramon de Sarrion
+said that he had known him all his life. And the Count de Sarrion had
+spoken with Christina when that woman was Queen of Spain.
+
+Mon was still astir, although the bells of the Cathedral of the Virgin of
+the Pillar, immediately behind his house, had struck the half hour. It
+was more than thirty minutes since the ferry-boat had sidled across the
+river, and Mon glanced at the clock on his mantelpiece. He expected, it
+would seem, a sequel to the arrival which had been so carefully noted.
+
+And at last the sequel came. A soft knock, as of fat fingers, made Mon
+glance towards the door, and bid the knocker enter. The door opened, and
+in its darkened entry stood the large form of the friar who had rendered
+such useful aid to a stricken traveler. The light of Mon's lamp showed
+this holy man to be large and heavy of face, with the narrow forehead of
+the fanatic. With such a face and head, this could not be a clever man.
+But he is a wise worker who has tools of different temper in his bag. Too
+fine a steel may snap. Too delicately fashioned an instrument may turn in
+the hand when suddenly pressed against the grain.
+
+Mon held out his hand, knowing that there would be no verbal message.
+From the mysterious folds of the friar's sleeves a letter instantly
+emerged.
+
+"They have blundered. The man is still living. You had better come," it
+said; and that was all.
+
+"And what do you know of this affair, my brother?" asked Mon, holding the
+letter to the candle, and, when it was ignited, throwing it on to the
+cold ashes in the open fireplace, where it burnt.
+
+"Little enough, Excellency. One of the Fathers, praying at his window,
+heard the sound of a struggle in the street, and I was sent out to see
+what it signified. I found a man lying on the ground, and, according to
+instructions, did not touch him, but went back for help."
+
+Mon nodded his compact head thoughtfully.
+
+"And the man said nothing?"
+
+"Nothing, Excellency."
+
+"You are a wise man, my brother. Go, and I will follow you."
+
+The friar's meek face was oily with that smile of complete
+self-satisfaction which is only found when foolishness and fervour meet
+in one brain.
+
+Mon rose slowly from his chair and stretched himself. It was evident that
+had he followed his own inclination he would have gone to bed. He perhaps
+had a sense of duty. He had not far to go, and knew the shortest ways
+through the narrow streets. He could hear a muleteer shouting at his
+beasts on the bridge as he crossed the Calle Don Jaime I. The streets
+were quiet enough otherwise, and the watchman of this quarter could be
+heard far away at the corner of the Plaza de la Constitucion calling to
+the gods that the weather was serene.
+
+Evasio Mon, cloaked to the eyes against the autumn night, hurried down
+the Calle San Gregorio and turned into an open doorway that led into the
+patio of a great four-sided house. He climbed the stone stair and knocked
+at a door, which was instantly opened.
+
+"Come!" said the man who opened it--a white-haired priest of benevolent
+face. "He is conscious. He asks for a notary. He is dying! I thought
+you--"
+
+"No," replied Mon quickly. "He would recognise me, though he has not seen
+me for twenty years. You must do it. Change your clothes."
+
+He spoke as with authority, and the priest fingered the silken cord
+around his waist.
+
+"I know nothing of the law," he said hesitatingly.
+
+"That I have thought of. Here are two forms of will. They are written so
+small as to be almost illegible. This one we must get signed if we can;
+but, failing that, the other will do. You see the difference. In this one
+the pin is from left to right; in that, from right to left. I will wait
+here while you change your clothes. As emergencies arise we will meet
+them."
+
+He spoke the last sentence coldly, and followed with his narrow gaze the
+movements of the old priest, who was laying aside his cassock.
+
+"Let us have no panics," Evasio Mon's manner seemed to say. And his air
+was that of a quiet pilot knowing his way through the narrow waters that
+lay ahead.
+
+In a small room near at hand, Francisco de Mogente was facing death. He
+lay half dressed upon a narrow bed. On a table near at hand stood a
+basin, a bottle, and a few evidences of surgical aid. But the doctor had
+gone. Two friars were in the room. One was praying; the other was the
+big, strong man who had first succoured the wounded traveler.
+
+"I asked for a notary," said Mogente curtly. Death had not softened him.
+He was staring straight in front of him with glassy eyes, thinking deeply
+and quickly. At times his expression was one of wonder, as if a
+conviction forced itself upon his mind from time to time against his will
+and despite the growing knowledge that he had no time to waste in
+wondering.
+
+"The notary has been sent for. He cannot delay in coming," replied the
+friar. "Rather give your thoughts to Heaven, my son, than to notaries."
+
+"Mind your own business," replied Mogente quietly. As he spoke the door
+opened and an old man came in. He had papers and a quill pen in his hand.
+
+"You sent for me--a notary," he said. Evasio Mon stood in the doorway a
+yard behind the dying man's head. The notary moved the table so that in
+looking at his client he could, with the corner of his eye, see also the
+face of Evasio Mon.
+
+"You wish to make a statement or a last testament?" said the notary.
+
+"A statement--no. It is useless since they have killed me. I will make a
+statement ... Elsewhere."
+
+And his laugh was not pleasant to the ear.
+
+"A will--yes," he continued--and hearing the notary dip his pen--
+
+"My name," he said, "is Francisco de Mogente."
+
+"Of?" inquired the notary, writing.
+
+"Of this city. You cannot be a notary of Saragossa or you would know
+that."
+
+"I am not a notary of Saragossa--go on."
+
+"Of Saragossa and Santiago de Cuba. And I have a great fortune to leave."
+
+One of the praying friars made a little involuntary movement. The love of
+money perhaps hid itself beneath the brown hood of the mendicant. The man
+who spoke was dying; already his breath came short.
+
+"Give me," he said, "some cordial, or I shall not last."
+
+After a pause he went on.
+
+"There is a will in existence which I now cancel. I made it when I was a
+younger man. I left my fortune to my son Leon de Mogente. To my daughter
+Juanita de Mogente I left a sufficiency. I wish now to make a will in
+favour of my son Leon"--he paused while the notary's quill pen ran over
+the paper--"on one condition."
+
+"On one condition"--wrote the notary, who had leant forward, but sat
+upright rather suddenly in obedience to a signal from Evasio Mon in the
+doorway. He had forgotten his tonsure.
+
+"That he does not go into religion--that he devotes no part of it to the
+benefit or advantage of the church."
+
+The notary sat very straight while he wrote this down.
+
+"My son is in Saragossa," said Mogente suddenly, with a change of manner.
+"I will see him. Send for him."
+
+The notary glanced up at Evasio Mon, who shook his head.
+
+"I cannot send for him at two in the morning."
+
+"Then I will sign no will."
+
+"Sign the will now," suggested the lawyer, with a look of doubt towards
+the dark doorway behind the sick man's head. "Sign now, and see your son
+to-morrow."
+
+"There is no to-morrow, my friend. Send for my son at once."
+
+Mon grudgingly nodded his head.
+
+"It is well, I will do as you wish," said the notary, only too glad, it
+would seem, to rise and go into the next room to receive further minute
+instructions from his chief.
+
+The dying man laid with closed eyes, and did not move until his son spoke
+to him. Leon de Mogente was a sparely-built man, with a white and
+oddly-rounded forehead. His eyes were dark, and he betrayed scarcely any
+emotion at the sight of his father in this lamentable plight.
+
+"Ah!" said the elder man. "It is you. You look like a monk. Are you one?"
+
+"Not yet," answered the pale youth in a low voice with a sort of
+suppressed exultation. Evasio Mon, watching him from the doorway, smiled
+faintly. He seemed to have no misgivings as to what Leon might say.
+
+"But you wish to become one?"
+
+"It is my dearest desire."
+
+The dying man laughed. "You are like your mother," he said. "She was a
+fool. You may go back to bed, my friend."
+
+"But I would rather stay here and pray by your bedside," pleaded the son.
+He was a feeble man--the only weak man, it would appear, in the room.
+
+"Then stay and pray if you want to," answered Mogente, without even
+troubling himself to show contempt.
+
+The notary was at his table again, and seemed to seek his cue by an
+upward glance.
+
+"You will, perhaps, leave your fortune," he suggested at length, "to--to
+some good work."
+
+But Evasio Mon was shaking his head.
+
+"To--to--?" began the notary once more, and then lapsed into a puzzled
+silence. He was at fault again. Mogente seemed to be failing. He lay
+quite still, looking straight in front of him.
+
+"The Count Ramon de Sarrion," he asked suddenly, "is he in Saragossa?"
+
+"No," answered the notary, after a glance into the darkened door.
+"No--but your will--your will. Try and remember what you are doing. You
+wish to leave your money to your son?"
+
+"No, no."
+
+"Then to--your daughter?"
+
+And the question seemed to be directed, not towards the bed, but behind
+it.
+
+"To your daughter?" he repeated more confidently. "That is right, is it
+not? To your daughter?"
+
+Mogente nodded his head.
+
+"Write it out shortly," he said in a low and distinct voice. "For I will
+sign nothing that I have not read, word for word, and I have but little
+time."
+
+The notary took a new sheet of paper and wrote out in bold and, it is to
+be presumed, unlegal terms that Francisco de Mogente left his earthly
+possessions to Juanita de Mogente, his only daughter. Being no notary,
+this elderly priest wrote out a plain-spoken document, about which there
+could be no doubt whatever in any court of law in the world, which is
+probably more than a lawyer could have done.
+
+Francisco de Mogente read the paper, and then, propped in the arms of the
+big friar, he signed his name to it. After this he lay quite still, so
+still that at last the notary, who stood watching him, slowly knelt down
+and fell to praying for the soul that was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WITHIN THE HIGH WALLS
+In these degenerate days Saragossa has taken to itself a suburb--the
+first and deadliest sign of a city's progress. Thirty years ago, however,
+Torrero did not exist, and those terrible erections of white stone and
+plaster which now disfigure the high land to the south of the city had
+not yet burst upon the calm of ancient architectural Spain. Here, on
+Monte Torrero, stood an old convent, now turned into a barrack. Here
+also, amid the trees of the ancient gardens, rises the rounded dome of
+the church of San Fernando.
+
+Close by, and at a slightly higher level, curves the Canal Imperial, 400
+years old, and not yet finished; assuredly conceived by a Moorish love of
+clear water in high places, but left to Spanish enterprise and in
+completeness when the Moors had departed.
+
+Beyond the convent walls, the canal winds round the slope of the brown
+hill, marking a distinctive line between the outer desert and the green
+oasis of Saragossa. Just within the border line of the oasis, just below
+the canal, on the sunny slope, lies the long low house of the Convent
+School of the Sisters of the True Faith. Here, amid the quiet of
+orchards--white in spring with blossom, the haunt of countless
+nightingales, heavy with fruit in autumn, at all times the home of a
+luxuriant vegetation--history has surged to and fro, like the tides
+drawn hither and thither, rising and falling according to the dictates of
+a far-off planet. And the moon of this tide is Rome.
+
+For the Sisters of the True Faith are a Jesuit corporation, and their
+Convent School is, now a convent, now a school, as the tide may rise or
+fall. The ebb first came in 1555, when Spain threw out the Jesuits. The
+flow was at its height so late as 1814, when Ferdinand VII--a Bourbon,
+of course--restored Jesuitism and the Inquisition at one stroke. And
+before and after, and through all these times, the tide of prosperity has
+risen and fallen, has sapped and sagged and undermined with a noiseless
+energy which the outer world only half suspects.
+
+In 1835 this same long, low, quiet house amid the fruit-trees was sacked
+by the furious populace, and more than one Sister of the True Faith, it
+is whispered, was beaten to the ground as she fled shrieking down the
+hill. In 1836 all monastic orders were rigidly suppressed by Mendizabal,
+minister to Queen Christina. In 1851 they were all allowed to live again
+by the same Queen's daughter, Isabel II. So wags this world into which
+there came nineteen hundred years ago not peace, but a sword; a world all
+stirred about by a reformed rake of Spain who, in his own words, came "to
+send fire throughout the earth;" whose motto was, "Ignem veni metteri in
+terram, et quid volo nisi ut accendatur."
+
+The road that runs by the bank of the canal was deserted when the Count
+de Sarrion turned his horse's head that way from the dusty high road
+leading southwards out of Saragossa. Sarrion had only been in Saragossa
+twenty-four hours. His great house on the Paseo del Ebro had not been
+thrown open for this brief visit, and he had been content to inhabit two
+rooms at the back of the house. From the balcony of one he had seen the
+incident related in the last chapter; and as he rode towards the convent
+school he carried in his hand--not a whip--but the delicately-wrought
+sword-stick which had fallen from the hand of Francisco de Mogente into
+the gutter the night before.
+
+In the grassy sedge that bordered the canal the frogs were calling to
+each other with that conversational note of interrogation in their
+throats which makes their music one of Nature's most sociable and
+companionable sounds. In the fruit-trees on the lower land the
+nightingales were singing as they only sing in Spain. It was nearly dark,
+a warm evening of late spring, and there was no wind. Amid the thousand
+scents of blossom, of opening buds, and a hundred flowering shrubs there
+arose the subtle, soft odour of sluggish water, stirred by frogs, telling
+of cool places beneath the trees where the weary and the dusty might lie
+in oblivion till the morning.
+
+The Count of Sarrion rode with a long stirrup, his spare form, six feet
+in height, a straight line from heel to shoulder. His seat in the saddle
+and something in his manner, at once gentle and cold, something mystic
+that attracted and yet held inexorably at arm's length, lent at once a
+deeper meaning to his name, which assuredly had a Moorish ring in it. The
+little town of Sarrion lies far to the south, on the borders of Valencia,
+in the heart of the Moorish country. And to look at the face of Ramon de
+Sarrion and of his son, the still, brown-faced Marcos de Sarrion, was to
+conjure up some old romance of that sun-scorched height of the
+Javalambre, where history dates back to centuries before Christ--where
+assuredly some Moslem maiden in the later time must have forsaken all for
+love of a wild yet courteous Spanish knight of Sarrion, bequeathing to
+her sons through all the ages the deep, reflective eyes, the impenetrable
+dignity, of her race.
+
+Sarrion's hair was gray. He wore a moustache and imperial in the French
+fashion, and looked at the world with the fierce eyes and somewhat of the
+air of an eagle, which resemblance was further accentuated by a
+finely-cut nose. As an old man he was picturesque. He must have been very
+handsome in his youth.
+
+It seemed that he was bound for the School of the Sisters of the True
+Faith, for as he approached its gate, built solidly within the thickness
+of the high wall, without so much as a crack or crevice through which the
+curious might peep, he drew rein, and sat motionless on his well-trained
+horse, listening. The clock at San Fernando immediately vouchsafed the
+information that it was nine o'clock. There was no one astir, no one on
+the road before or behind him. Across the narrow canal was a bare field.
+The convent wall bounded the view on the left hand.
+
+Sarrion rode up to the gate and rang a bell, which clanged with a sort of
+surreptitiousness just within. He only rang once, and then waited,
+posting himself immediately opposite a little grating let into the solid
+wood of the door. The window behind the grating seemed to open and shut
+without sound, for he heard nothing until a woman's voice asked who was
+there.
+
+"It is the Count Ramon de Sarrion who must without fail speak to the
+Sister Superior to-night," he answered, and composed himself again in the
+saddle with a southern patience. He waited a long time before the heavy
+doors were at length opened. The horse passed timorously within, with
+jerking ears and a distended nostril, looking from side to side. He
+glanced curiously at the shadowy forms of two women who held the door,
+and leant their whole weight against it to close it again as soon as
+possible.
+
+Sarrion dismounted, and drew the bridle through a ring and hook attached
+to the wall just inside the gates. No one spoke. The two nuns noiselessly
+replaced the heavy bolts. There was a muffled clank of large keys, and
+they led the way towards the house.
+
+Just over the threshold was the small room where visitors were asked to
+wait--a square, bare apartment with one window set high in the wall, with
+one lamp burning dimly on the table now. There were three or four chairs,
+and that was all. The bare walls were whitewashed. The Convent School of
+the Sisters of the True Faith did not err, at all events, in the heathen
+indiscretion of a too free hospitality. The visitors to this room were
+barely beneath the roof. The door had in one of its panels the usual
+grating and shutter.
+
+Sarrion sat down without looking round him, in the manner of a man who
+knew his surroundings, and took no interest in them.
+
+In a few minutes the door opened noiselessly--there was a too obtrusive
+noiselessness within these walls--and a nun came in. She was tall, and
+within the shadow of her cap her eyes loomed darkly. She closed the door,
+and, throwing back her veil, came forward. She leant towards Sarrion, and
+kissed him, and her face, coming within the radius of the lamp, was the
+face of a Sarrion.
+
+There was in her action, in the movement of her high-held head, a sudden
+and startling self-abandonment of affection. For Spanish women understand
+above all others the calling of love and motherhood. And it seemed that
+Sor Teresa--known in the world as Dolores Sarrion--had, like many women,
+bestowed a thwarted love--faute de mieux--upon her brother.
+
+"You are well?" asked Sarrion, looking at her closely. Her face, framed
+by a spotless cap, was gray and drawn, but not unhappy.
+
+She nodded her head with a smile, while her eyes flitted over his face
+and person with that quick interrogation which serves better than words.
+A woman never asks minutely after the health of one in whom she is really
+interested. She knows without asking. She stood before him with her hands
+crossed within the folds of her ample sleeves. Her face was lost again in
+the encircling shadow of her cap and veil. She was erect and motionless
+in her stiff and heavy clothing. The momentary betrayal of womanhood and
+affection was passed, and this was the dreaded Sister Superior of the
+Convent School again.
+
+"I suppose," she said, "you are alone as usual. Is it safe, after
+nightfall--you, who have so many enemies?"
+
+"Marcos is at Torre Garda, where I left him three days ago. The snows are
+melting and the fishing is good. It is unusual to come at this hour, I
+know, but I came for a special purpose."
+
+He glanced towards the door. The quiet of this house seemed to arouse a
+sense of suspicion and antagonism in his mind.
+
+"I wished, of course, to see you also, though I am aware that the
+affections are out of place in this--holy atmosphere."
+
+She winced almost imperceptibly and said nothing.
+
+"I want to see Juanita de Mogente," said the Count. "It is unusual, I
+know, but in this place you are all-powerful. It is important, or I
+should not ask it."
+
+"She is in bed. They go to bed at eight o'clock."
+
+"I know. Is not that all the better? She has a room to herself, I
+recollect. You can arouse her and bring her to me and no one need know
+that she has had a visitor--except, I suppose, the peeping eyes that
+haunt a nunnery corridor."
+
+He gave a shrug of the shoulder.
+
+"Mother of God!" he exclaimed. "The air of secrecy infects one. I am not
+a secretive man. All the world knows my opinions. And here am I plotting
+like a friar. Can I see Juanita?"
+
+And he laughed quietly as he looked at his sister.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+He nodded his thanks.
+
+"And, Dolores, listen!" he said. "Let me see her alone. It may save
+complications in the future. You understand?"
+
+Sor Teresa turned in the doorway and looked at him.
+
+He could not see the expression of her eyes, which were in deep shadow,
+and she left him wondering whether she had understood or not.
+
+It would seem that Sor Teresa, despite her slow dignity of manner, was a
+quick person. For in a few moments the door of the waiting-room was again
+opened and a young girl hastened breathlessly in. She was not more than
+sixteen or seventeen, and as she came in she threw back her dark hair
+with one hand.
+
+"I was asleep, Uncle Ramon," she exclaimed with a light laugh, "and the
+good Sister had to drag me out of bed before I would wake up. And then,
+of course, I thought it was a fire. We have always hoped for a fire, you
+know."
+
+She was continuing to attend to her hasty dress as she spoke, tying the
+ribbon at the throat of her gay dressing-gown with careless fingers.
+
+"I had not even time to pull up my stockings," she concluded, making good
+the omission with a friendly nonchalance. Then she turned to look at Sor
+Teresa, but her eyes found instead the closed door.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "the good Sister has forgotten to come back with me. And
+it is against the rules. What a joke! We are not allowed to see visitors
+alone--except father or mother, you know. I don't care. It was not my
+fault."
+
+And she looked doubtfully from the door to Sarrion and back again to the
+door. She was very young and gay and careless. Her cheeks still flushed
+by the deep sleep of childhood were of the colour of a peach that has
+ripened quickly in the glow of a southern sun. Her eyes were dark and
+very bright; the bird-like shallow vivacity of childhood still sparkled
+in them. It seemed that they were made for laughing, not for tears or
+thought. She was the incarnation of youth and springtime. To find such
+ignorance of the world, such innocence of heart, one must go to a nunnery
+or to Nature.
+
+"I came to see you to-night," said Sarrion, "as I may be leaving
+Saragossa again to-morrow morning."
+
+"And the good Sister allowed me to see you. I wonder why! She has been
+cross with me lately. I am always breaking things, you know."
+
+She spread out her hands with a gesture of despair.
+
+"Yesterday it was an altar-vase. I tripped over the foot of that stupid
+St. Andrew. Have you heard from papa?"
+
+Sarrion hesitated for a moment at the sudden question.
+
+"No," he answered at length.
+
+"Oh! I wish he would come home from Cuba," said the girl, with a passing
+gravity. "I wonder what he will be like. Will his hair be gray? Not that
+I dislike gray hair you know," she added hurriedly. "I hope he will be
+nice. One of the girls told me the other day that she disliked her
+father, which seems odd, doesn't it? Milagros de Villanueva--do you know
+her? She was my friend once. We told each other everything. She has red
+hair. I thought it was golden when she was my friend. But one can see
+with half an eye that it is red."
+
+Sarrion laughed rather shortly.
+
+"Have you heard from your father?" he asked.
+
+"I had a letter on Saint Mark's Day," she answered. "I have not heard
+from him since. He said he hoped to give me a surprise, he trusted a
+pleasant one, during the summer. What did he mean? Do you know?"
+
+"No," answered Sarrion, thoughtfully. "I know nothing."
+
+"And Marcos is not with you?" the girl went on gaily. "He would not dare
+to come within the walls. He is afraid of all nuns. I know he is, though
+he denies it. Some day, in the holidays, I shall dress as a nun, and you
+will see. It will frighten him out of his wits."
+
+"Yes," said Sarrion looking at her, "I expect it would. Tell me," he went
+on after a pause, "Do you know this stick?"
+
+And he held out, under the rays of the lamp, the sword-stick he had
+picked up in the Calle San Gregorio.
+
+She looked at it and then at him with startled eyes.
+
+"Of course," she said. "It is the sword-stick I sent papa for the New
+Year. You ordered it yourself from Toledo. See, here is the crest. Where
+did you get it? Do not mystify me. Tell me quickly--is he here? Has he
+come home?"
+
+In her eagerness she laid her hands on his dusty riding coat and looked
+up into his face.
+
+"No, my child, no," answered Sarrion, stroking her hair, with a
+tenderness unusual enough to be remembered afterwards. "I think not. The
+stick must have been stolen from him and found its way back to Saragossa
+in the hand of the thief. I picked it up in the street yesterday. It is a
+coincidence, that is all. I will write to your father and tell him of
+it."
+
+Sarrion turned away, so that the shade of the lamp threw his face into
+darkness. He was afraid of those quick, bright eyes--almost afraid that
+she should divine that he had already telegraphed to Cuba.
+
+"I only came to ask you whether you had heard from your father and to
+hear that you were well. And now I must go."
+
+She stood looking at him, thoughtfully pulling at the delicate embroidery
+of her sleeves, for all that she wore was of the best that Saragossa
+could provide, and she wore it carelessly, as if she had never known
+other, and paid little heed to wealth---as those do who have always had
+it.
+
+"I think there is something you are not telling me," she said, with the
+ever-ready laugh twinkling beneath her dusky lashes. "Some mystery."
+
+"No, no. Good-night, my child. Go back to your bed."
+
+She paused with her hand on the door, looking back, her face all shaded
+by her tumbled hair hanging to her waist.
+
+
+"Are you sure you have not heard from papa?"
+
+"Quite sure--! I wish I had," he added when the door was closed behind
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE JADE--CHANCE
+The same evening, by the light of his solitary lamp, in the small
+room--which had been a lady's boudoir in olden days--the Count de Sarrion
+sat down to write a letter to his son. He despatched it at once by a
+rider to Torre Garda, far beyond Pampeluna, on the southern slope of the
+Pyrenees.
+
+"I am growing too old for this work," he said to himself as he sealed the
+letter. "It wants a younger man. Marcos will do it, though he hates the
+pavement. There is something of the chase in it, and Marcos is a hunter."
+
+At his call a man came into the room, all dusty and sunburnt, a typical
+man of Aragon, dry and wrinkled, burnt like a son of Sahara. His
+clothing, like his face, was dust-coloured. He wore knee-breeches of
+homespun, brown stockings, a handkerchief that had once been coloured
+bound round his head, with the knot over his left ear. He was startlingly
+rough and wild in appearance, but his features, on examination, were
+refined, and his eyes intelligent.
+
+"I want you to go straight to Torre Garda with this letter, and give it
+into the hand of my son with your own hand. It is important. You may be
+watched and followed; you understand?"
+
+The man nodded. They are a taciturn people in Aragon and Navarre--so
+taciturn that in politely greeting the passer on the road they cut down
+the curt good-day. "Buenas," they say, and that is all.
+
+"Go with God," said the Count, and the messenger left the room
+noiselessly, for they wear no shoe-leather in this dry land.
+
+There was a train in those days to Pampeluna and a daily post, but then,
+as now, a letter of any importance is better sent by hand, while the
+railway is still looked upon with suspicion by the authorities as a means
+of circulating malcontents and spreading crime. Every train is still
+inspected at each stopping place by two of the civil guards.
+
+The Count was early astir the next morning. He knew that a man such as
+Marcos, possessing the instinct of the chase and that deep insight into
+the thoughts and actions of others, even into the thoughts and actions of
+animals, which makes a great hunter or a great captain, would never have
+let slip the feeble clue that he had of the incident in the Calle San
+Gregorio. The Count had been a politician in his youth, and his position
+entailed a passive continuance of the policy he had actively advocated in
+earlier days. But as an old sailor, weary with the battle of many storms,
+learns at last to treat the thunder and the tempest with a certain
+tolerant contempt, so he, having passed through evil monarchies and
+corrupt regencies, through the storm of anarchy and the humiliation of a
+brief and ridiculous republic, now stood aside and watched the waves go
+past him with a semi-contemptuous indifference.
+
+He was too well known in the streets of Saragossa to wander hither and
+thither in them, making inquiry as to whether any had seen his lifelong
+friend Francisco de Mogente back in the city of his birth from which he
+had been exiled in the uncertain days of Isabella. Francisco de Mogente
+had been placed in one of those vague positions of Spanish political life
+where exile had never been commuted, though friend and enemy would alike
+have welcomed the return of a scapegoat on their own terms. But Mogente
+had never been the man to make terms--any more than this grim Spanish
+nobleman who now sat wondering what his next move must be.
+
+After his early coffee Sarrion went out into the Calle San Gregorio. The
+sound of deep voices chanting the matins came to him through the open
+doors of the Cathedral of the Seo. A priest hurried past, late, and yet
+in time to save his record of services attended. The beggars were
+leisurely making their way to the cathedral doors, too lazy to make an
+earlier start, philosophically reflecting that the charitable are as
+likely to give after matins as before.
+
+The Count went over the ground of the scene that he had witnessed in the
+fitful moonlight. Here the man who might have been Francisco de Mogente
+had turned on his heel. Here, at the never opened door of a deserted
+palace, he had stood for a moment fighting with his back to the wall.
+Here he had fallen. From that corner had come aid in the person--Sarrion
+was sure--of a friar. It was an odd coincidence, for the Church had never
+been the friend of the exiled man, and it was in the days of a
+priest-ridden Queen that his foes had triumphed.
+
+They had carried the stricken man back to the corner of the Calle San
+Gregorio and the Plazuela San Bruno, and from the movements of the
+bearers Sarrion had received the conviction that they had entered the
+house immediately beyond the angle of the high building opposite to the
+Episcopal Palace.
+
+Sarrion followed his memory step by step. He determined to go into the
+house--a huge building--divided into many small apartments. The door had
+never particularly attracted his attention. Like many of the doorways of
+these great houses, it was wide and high, giving access to a dark
+stairway of stone. The doors stood open night and day. For this stairway
+was a common one, as its dirtiness would testify.
+
+There was some one coming down the stairs now. Sarrion, remembering that
+his face was well known, and that he had no particular business in any of
+the apartments into which the house was divided, paused for a moment, and
+waited on the threshold. He looked up the dark stairs, and slowly
+distinguished the form and face of the newcomer. It was his old friend
+Evasio Mon--smart, well-brushed, smiling a good-morning to all the world
+this sunny day.
+
+They had not met for many years. Their friendship had been one of those
+begun by parents, and carried on in after years by the children more from
+habit than from any particular tie of sympathy. For we all find at length
+that the nursery carpet is not the world. Their ways had parted soon
+after the nursery, and, though they had met frequently, they had never
+trodden the same path again. For Evasio Mon had been educated as a
+priest.
+
+"I have often wondered why I have never clashed--with Evasio Mon,"
+Sarrion once said to his son in the reflective quiet of their life at
+Torre Garda.
+
+"It takes two to clash," replied Marcos at length in his contemplative
+way, having given the matter his consideration. And perhaps that was the
+only explanation of it.
+
+Sarrion looked up now and met the smile with a grave bow. They took off
+their hats to each other with rather more ceremony than when they had
+last met. A long, slow friendship is the best; a long, slow enmity the
+deadliest.
+
+"One does not expect to see you in Saragossa," said Mon gently. A man
+bears his school mark all through life. This layman had learnt something
+in the seminary which he had never forgotten.
+
+"No," replied the other. "What is this house? I was just going into it."
+
+Mon turned and looked up at the building with a little wave of the hand,
+indicating lightly the stones and mortar.
+
+"It is just a house, my friend, as you see--a house, like another."
+
+"And who lives in it?"
+
+"Poor people, and foolish people. As in any other. People one must pity
+and cannot help despising."
+
+He laughed, and as he spoke he led the way, as it were, unconsciously
+away from this house which was like another.
+
+"Because they are poor?" inquired Sarrion, who did not move a step in
+response to Evasio Mon's lead.
+
+"Partly," admitted Mon, holding up one finger. "Because, my friend, none
+but the foolish are poor in this world."
+
+"Then why has the good God sent so many fools into the world?"
+
+"Because He wants a few saints, I suppose."
+
+Mon was still trying to lead him away from that threshold and Sarrion
+still stood his ground. Their half-bantering talk suddenly collapsed, and
+they stood looking at each other in silence for a moment. Both were what
+may be called "ready" men, quick to catch a thought and answer.
+
+"I will tell you," said Sarrion quietly, "why I am going into this house.
+I have long ceased to take an interest in the politics of this poor
+country, as you know."
+
+Mon's gesture seemed to indicate that Sarrion had only done what was wise
+and sensible in a matter of which it was no longer any use to talk.
+
+"But to my friends I still give a thought," went on the Count. "Two
+nights ago a man was attacked in this street--by the usual street
+cutthroats, it is to be supposed. I saw it all from my balcony there.
+See, from this corner you can perceive the balcony."
+
+He drew Mon to the corner of the street, and pointed out the Sarrion
+Palace, gloomy and deserted at the further end of the street.
+
+"But it was dark, and I could not see much," he added, seeming
+unconsciously to answer a question passing in his companion's mind; for
+Mon's pleasant eyes were measuring the distance.
+
+"I thought they brought him in here; for before I could descend help
+came, and the cutthroats ran away."
+
+"It is like your good, kind heart, my friend, to interest yourself in the
+fate of some rake, who was probably tipsy, or else he would not have been
+abroad at that hour."
+
+"I had not mentioned the hour."
+
+"One presumes," said Mon, with a short laugh, "that such incidents do not
+happen in the early evening. However, let us by all means make inquiries
+after your dissipated protege."
+
+He moved with alacrity to the house, leading the way now.
+
+"By an odd chance," said Sarrion, following him more slowly, "I have
+conceived the idea that this man is an old friend of mine."
+
+"Then, my good Ramon, he must be an old friend of mine, too."
+
+"Francisco de Mogente."
+
+Mon stopped with a movement of genuine surprise, followed instantly by a
+quick sidelong glance beneath his lashes.
+
+"Our poor, wrong-headed Francisco," he said, "what made you think of him
+after all these years? Have you heard from him?"
+
+He turned on the stairs as he asked this question in an indifferent voice
+and waited for the answer; but Sarrion was looking at the steps with a
+deep attention.
+
+"See," he said, "there are drops of blood on the stairs. There was blood
+in the street, but it had been covered with dust. This also has been
+covered with dust--but the dust may be swept aside--see!"
+
+And with the gloves which a Spanish gentleman still carries in his hand
+whenever he is out of doors, he brushed the dust aside.
+
+"Yes," said Mon, examining the steps, "yes; you may be right. Come, let
+us make inquiries. I know most of the people in this house. They are poor
+people. In my small way I help some of them, when an evil time comes in
+the winter."
+
+He was all eagerness now, and full of desire to help. It was he who told
+the Count's story, and told it a little wrong as a story is usually
+related by one who repeats it, while Sarrion stood at the door and looked
+around him. It was Mon who persisted that every stone should be turned,
+and every denizen of the great house interrogated. But nothing resulted
+from these inquiries.
+
+"I did not, of course, mention Francisco's name," he said,
+confidentially, as they emerged into the street again. "Nothing was to be
+gained by that. And I confess I think you are the victim of your own
+imagination in this. Francisco is in Santiago de Cuba, and will probably
+never return. If he were here in Saragossa surely his own son would know
+it. I saw Leon de Mogente the day before yesterday, by the way, and he
+said nothing of his father. And it is not long since I spoke with
+Juanita. We could make inquiry of Leon--but not to-day, by the way. It
+is a great Retreat, organised by some pilgrims to the Shrine of our Lady
+of the Pillar, and Leon is sure to be of it. The man is half a monk, you
+know."
+
+They were walking down the Calle San Gregorio, and, as if in illustration
+of the fact that chance will betray those who wait most assiduously upon
+her, the curtain of the great door of the cathedral was drawn aside, and
+Leon de Mogente came out blinking into the sunlight. The meeting was
+inevitable.
+
+"There is Leon--by a lucky chance," said Mon almost immediately.
+
+Leon de Mogente had seen them and was hurrying to meet them. Seen thus in
+the street, under the sun, he was a pale and bloodless man--food for the
+cloister. He bowed with an odd humility to Mon, but spoke directly to the
+Count de Sarrion. He knew, and showed that he knew, that Mon was not glad
+to see him.
+
+"I did not know that you were in Saragossa," he said. "A terrible thing
+has happened. My father is dead. He died without the benefits of the
+Church. He returned secretly to Saragossa two days ago and was attacked
+and robbed in the streets."
+
+"And died in that house," added Sarrion, indicating with his stick the
+building they had just quitted.
+
+"Ye--es," answered Leon hesitatingly, with a quick and frightened glance
+at Mon. "It may have been. I do not know. He died without the consolation
+of the Church. It is that that I think of."
+
+"Yes," said Sarrion rather coldly, "you naturally would."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A PILGRIMAGE
+Evasio Mon was a great traveler. In Eastern countries a man who makes the
+pilgrimage to Mecca adds thereafter to his name a title which carries
+with it not only the distinction conferred upon the dullest by the sight
+of other men and countries, but the bearer stands high among the elect.
+
+If many pilgrimages could confer a title, this gentle-mannered Spaniard
+would assuredly have been thus decorated. He had made almost every
+pilgrimage that the Church may dictate--that wise old Church, which fills
+so well its vocation in the minds of the restless and the unsatisfied. He
+had been many times to Rome. He could tell you the specific properties of
+every shrine in the Roman Catholic world. He made a sort of speciality in
+latter-day miracles.
+
+Did this woman want a son to put a graceful finish to her family of
+daughters, he could tell her of some little-known pilgrimage in the
+mountains which rarely failed.
+
+"Go," he would say. "Go there, and say your prayer. It is the right thing
+to do. The air of the mountains is delightful. The journey diverts the
+mind."
+
+In all of which he was quite right. And it was not for him, any more than
+it is for the profane reader, to inquire why latter-day miracles are
+nearly always performed at or near popular health resorts.
+
+Was another in grief, Evasio Mon would send him on a long journey to a
+gay city, where the devout are not without worldly diversion in the
+evenings.
+
+Neither was it upon hearsay only that he prescribed. He had been to all
+these places, and tested them perhaps, which would account for his serene
+demeanour and that even health which he seemed to enjoy. He had traveled
+without perturbment, it would seem, for his journeys had left no wrinkles
+on his bland forehead, neither was the light of restlessness in his quiet
+eyes.
+
+He must have seen many cities, but cities are nearly all alike, and they
+grow more alike every day. Many men also must he have met, but they
+seemed to have rubbed against him and left him unmarked--as sandstone may
+rub against a diamond. It is upon the sandstone that the scratch remains.
+He was not part of all that he had seen, which may have meant that he
+looked not at men or cities, but right through them, to something beyond,
+upon which his gaze was always fixed.
+
+Living as he did, in a city possessing so great a shrine as that of the
+"Virgen del Pilar," the scene of a vision accorded to St. James when
+traveling through Spain, Mon naturally interested himself in the
+pilgrims, who came from all parts of the world to worship in the
+cathedral, who may be seen at any hour kneeling in the dim light of
+flickering candles before the altar rails.
+
+Mon's apartment, indeed, in the tall house next door to the Posada de los
+Reyes on the Paseo del Ebro was a known resort of the more cultured of
+the pilgrims, of these who came from afar; from Rome and from the
+farthest limits of the Roman Church--from Warsaw to Minnesota.
+
+Evasio Mon had friends also among the humble and such as sheltered in the
+Posada de los Reyes, which itself was a typical Spanish hostelry, and one
+of those houses of the road in which the traveler is lucky if he finds
+the bedrooms all occupied; for then he may, without giving offense, sleep
+more comfortably in the hayloft. Here, night and day, the clink of bells
+and the gruff admonition of refractory mules told of travel, and the
+constant come and go of strange, wild-looking men from the remoter
+corners of Aragon, far up by the foothills of the Pyrenees. The huge
+two-wheeled carts drawn by six, eight or ten mules, came lumbering
+through the dust at all hours of the twenty-four, bringing the produce of
+the greener lands to this oasis of the Aragonese desert. Some came from
+other oases in the salt and stony plains where once an inland sea covered
+all, while the others hailed from the north where the Sierras de Guara
+rise merging into the giant Pyrenees.
+
+Many of these drivers made their way up the stairs of the house where
+Evasio Mon lived his quiet life, and gave a letter or merely a verbal
+message, remembered faithfully through the long and dusty journey, to the
+man who, though no priest himself, seemed known to every priest in Spain.
+These letters and messages were nearly always from the curate of some
+distant village, and told as often as not of a cheerful hopefulness in
+the work.
+
+Sometimes the good men themselves would come, sitting humbly beneath the
+hood of the great cart, or riding a mule, far enough in front to avoid
+the dust, and yet near enough for company. This was more especially in
+the month of February, at the anniversary of the miraculous appearance,
+at which time the graven image set up in the cathedral is understood to
+be more amenable to supplication than at any other. And, having
+accomplished their pilgrimage, the simple churchmen turned quite
+naturally to the house that stood adjoining the cathedral. There, they
+were always sure of a welcome and of an invitation to lunch or dinner,
+when they were treated to the very best the city could afford, and, while
+keeping strictly within the letter of the canonical law, could feast
+their hearty country appetites even in Lent.
+
+Mon so arranged his journeys that he should be away from Saragossa in the
+great heats of the summer and autumn, which wise precaution was rendered
+the easier by the dates of the other great festivals which he usually
+attended. For it will be found that the miracles and other events
+attractive to the devout nearly always happen at that season of the year
+which is most suitable to the environments. Thus the traditions of the
+Middle Ages fixed the month of February for Saragossa when it is pleasant
+to be in a city, and September for Montserrat--to quote only one
+instance--at which time the cool air of the mountains is most to be
+appreciated.
+
+Evasio Mon, however, was among those who deemed it wise to avoid the
+great festival at Montserrat by making his pilgrimage earlier in the
+summer, when the number of the devout was more restricted and their
+quality more select. Scores of thousands of the very poorest in the land
+flock to the monastery in September, turning the mountain into a picnic
+ground and the festival into a fair.
+
+Mon never knew when the spirit would move him to make this pleasant
+journey, but his preparations for it must have been made in advance, and
+his departure by an early train the day after meeting his old friend the
+Count de Sarrion was probably sudden to every one except himself.
+
+He left the train at Lerida, going on foot from the station to the town,
+but he did not seek an hotel. He had a friend, it appeared, whose house
+was open to him, in the Spanish way, who lived near the church in the
+long, narrow street which forms nearly the whole town of Lerida. In
+Navarre and Aragon the train service is not quite up to modern
+requirements. There is usually one passenger train in either direction
+during the day, though between the larger cities this service has of late
+years been doubled. It was afternoon, and the hour of the siesta, when
+Evasio Mon walked through the narrow streets of this ancient city.
+
+Although the sun was hot, and all nature lay gasping beneath it, the
+streets were unusually busy, and in the shades of the arcades at the
+corner of the market-place, at the corner of the bridge, and by the bank
+of the river, where the low wall is rubbed smooth by the trousers of the
+indolent, men stood in groups and talked in a low voice. It is not too
+much to state that the only serene face in the streets was that of Evasio
+Mon, who went on his way with the absorbed smile which is usually taken
+in England to indicate the Christian virtues, and is associated as often
+as not with Dissent.
+
+The men of Lérida--a simpler, more agricultural race than the
+Navarrese--were disturbed; and, indeed, these were stirring times in
+Spain. These men knew what might come at any moment, for they had been
+born in stirring times and their fathers before them. Stirring times had
+reigned in this country for a hundred years. Ferdinand VII--the beloved,
+the dupe of Napoleon the Great, the god of all Spain from Irun to San
+Roque, and one of the thorough-paced scoundrels whom God has permitted to
+sit on a throne--had bequeathed to his country a legacy of strife, which
+was now bearing fruit.
+
+For not only Aragon, but all Spain was at this time in the most
+unfortunate position in which a nation or a man--and, above all, a
+woman--can find herself--she did not know what she wanted.
+
+On one side was Catalonia, republican, fiery, democratic, and
+independent; on the other, Navarre, more priest-ridden than Rome herself,
+with every man a Carlist and every woman that which her confessor told
+her to be. In the south, Andalusia only asked to be left alone to go her
+own sunny, indifferent way to the limbo of the great nations. Which way
+should Aragon turn? In truth, the men of Aragon knew not themselves.
+
+Stirring times indeed; for the news had just penetrated to far remote
+Lérida that the two greatest nations of Europe were at each other's
+throats. It was a long cry from Ems to Lérida, and the talkers on the
+shady side of the market-place knew little of what was passing on the
+banks of the Rhine.
+
+Stirring times, too, were nearer at hand across the Mediterranean. For
+things were approaching a deadlock on the Tiber, and that river, too,
+must, it seemed, flow with blood before the year ran out. For the
+greatest catastrophe that the Church has had to face was preparing in the
+new and temporary capital of Italy; and all men knew that the word must
+soon go forth from Florence telling the monarch of the Vatican that he
+must relinquish Rome or fight for it.
+
+Spain, in her awkward search for a king hither and thither over Europe,
+had thrown France and Germany into war. And Evasio Mon probably knew of
+the historic scene at Ems as soon as any man in the Peninsula; for
+history will undoubtedly show, when a generation or so has passed away,
+that the latter stages of Napoleon's declaration of war were hurried on
+by priestly intrigue. It will be remembered that Bismarck was the
+deadliest and cleverest foe that Jesuitism has had.
+
+Mon knew what the talkers in the market-place were saying to each other.
+He probably knew what they were afraid to say to each other. For Spain
+was still seeking a king--might yet set other nations by the ears. The
+Republic had been tried and had miserably failed. There was yet a Don
+Carlos, a direct descendant of the brother whom Ferdinand the beloved
+cheated out of his throne. There was a Don Carlos. Why not Don Carlos,
+since we seek a king? the men in the Phrygian caps were saying to each
+other. And that was what Mon wanted them to say.
+
+After dark he came out into the streets again, cloaked to the lips
+against the evening air. He went to the large cafe by the river, and
+there seemed to meet many acquaintances.
+
+The next morning he continued his journey, by road now, and on horseback.
+He sat a horse well, but not with that comfort which is begotten of a
+love of the animal. For him the horse was essentially a means of
+transport, and all other animals were looked at in a like utilitarian
+spirit.
+
+In every village he found a friend. As often as not he was the first to
+bring the news of war to a people who have scarcely known peace these
+hundred years. The teller of news cannot help telling with his tidings
+his own view of them; and Evasio Mon made it known that in his opinion
+all who had a grievance could want no better opportunity of airing it.
+
+Thus he traveled slowly through the country towards Montserrat; and
+wherever his slight, black-clad form and serene face had passed, the
+spirit of unrest was left behind. In remote Aragonese villages, as in
+busy Catalan towns where the artisan (that disturber of ancient peace)
+was already beginning to add his voice to things of Spain, Evasio Mon
+always found a hearing.
+
+Needless to say he found in every village Venta, in every Posada of the
+towns, that which is easy to find in this babbling world--a talker.
+
+And Evasio Mon was a notable listener.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PILGRIMS
+It is not often that nature takes the trouble to stir the heart of man
+into any emotion stronger than a quiet admiration or a peaceful wonder.
+Here and there on the face of the earth, however, the astonishing work of
+God gives pause to the most casual observer, the most thoughtless
+traveler.
+
+"Why did He do this?" one wonders. And no geologist--not even a French
+geologist with his quick imagination and lively sense of the
+picturesque--can answer the question.
+
+On first perceiving the sudden, uncouth height of Montserrat the traveler
+must assuredly ask in his own mind, "Why?"
+
+The mountain is of granite, where no other granite is. It belongs to no
+neighbouring formation. It stands alone, throwing up its rugged peaks
+into a cloudless sky. It is a piece from nothing near it---from nothing
+nearer, one must conclude, than the moon. No wonder it stirred the
+imagination of medićval men dimly groping for their God.
+
+Ignatius de Loyola solved the question with that unbounded assurance
+which almost always accompanies the greatest of human blunders. It is the
+self-confident man who compasses the finest wreck, Loyola, wounded in the
+defense of that strongest little city in Europe, Pampeluna--wounded,
+alas! and not killed--jumped to the conclusion that God had reared up
+Montserrat as a sign. For it was here that the Spanish soldier, who was
+to mould the history of half the world, dedicated himself to Heaven.
+
+Within sight of the Mediterranean and of the Pyrenees, towering above the
+brown plains of Catalonia, this shrine is the greatest in Christendom
+that bases its greatness on nothing but tradition. Thousands of pilgrims
+flock here every year. Should they ask for history, they are given a
+legend. Do they demand a fact, they are told a miracle. On payment of a
+sufficient fee they are shown a small, ill-carved figure in wood. The
+monastery is not without its story; for the French occupied it and burnt
+it to the ground. For the rest, its story is that of Spain, torn hither
+and thither in the hopeless struggle of a Church no longer able to meet
+the demands of an enlightened religious comprehension, and endeavouring
+to hold back the inevitable advance of the human understanding.
+
+To-day a few monks are permitted to live in the great houses teaching
+music and providing for the wants of the devout pilgrims. Without the
+monastery gate, there is a good and exceedingly prosperous restaurant
+where the traveler may feed. In the vast houses, is accommodation for
+rich and poor; a cell and clean linen, a bed and a monastic basin. The
+monks keep a small store, where candles may be bought and matches, and
+even soap, which is in small demand.
+
+Evasio Mon arrived at Montserrat in the evening, having driven in open
+carriage from the small town of Monistrol in the valley below. It was the
+hour of the table d'hôte, and the still evening air was ambient with
+culinary odours. Mon went at once to the office of the monastery, and
+there received his sheets and pillow-case, his towel, his candle, and the
+key of his cell in the long corridor of the house of Santa Maria de Jesu.
+He knew his way about these holy houses, and exchanged a nod of
+recognition with the lay brother on duty in the office.
+
+Then this traveler hurried across the courtyard and out of the great gate
+to join the pilgrims of the richer sort at table in the dining-room of
+the restaurant. There were four who looked up from their plates and bowed
+in the grave Spanish way when he entered the room. Then all fell to their
+fish again in silence; for Spain is a silent country, and only babbles in
+that home of fervid eloquence and fatal verbosity, the Cortes. It is
+always dangerous to enter into conversation with a stranger in Spain, for
+there is practically no subject upon which the various nationalities are
+unable to quarrel. A Frenchman is a Frenchman all the world over, and
+politics may be avoided by a graceful reference to the Patrie, for which
+Republican and Legitimist are alike prepared to die. But the Spaniard may
+be an Aragonese or a Valencian, an Andalusian or a Guipuzcoan, and
+patriotism is a flower of purely local growth and colour.
+
+Thus men, meeting in public places have learnt to do so in silence; and a
+table d'hôte is a wordless function unless the inevitable Andalusian--he
+who takes the place of the Gascon in France--is present with his babble
+and his laugh, his fine opinion of himself, and his faculty for making a
+sacrifice of his own dignity at that over-rated altar--the shrine of
+sociability.
+
+There was no Andalusian at this small table to serve at once as a link of
+sympathy between the quiet men, who would fain silence him, and a means
+of making unsociable persons acquainted with each other. The five men
+were thus permitted to dine in a silence befitting their surroundings and
+their station in life. For they were obviously gentlemen, and obviously
+of a thoughtful and perhaps devout habit of mind. A keen observer who has
+had the cosmopolitan education, say, of an attaché, is usually able to
+assign a nationality to each member of a mixed assembly; but there was a
+subtle resemblance to each other in these diners, which would have made
+the task a hard one. These were citizens of the world, and their likeness
+lay deeper than a mere accident of dress. In fact, the most remarkable
+thing about them was that they were all alike studiously unremarkable.
+
+After the formal bow, Evasio Mon gave his attention to the fare set
+before him. Once he raised his narrow gaze, and, with a smile of
+recognition, acknowledged the grave and very curt nod of a man seated
+opposite. A second time he met the glance of another diner, a stout,
+puffy man, who breathed heavily while he ate. Both men alike averted
+their eyes at once, and both looked towards a little wizened man, doubled
+up in his chair, who ate sparingly, and bore on his wrinkled face and
+bent form, the evidence of such a weight of care as few but kings and
+ministers ever know.
+
+So absorbed was he that after one glance at Evasio Mon he lapsed again
+into his own thoughts. The very manner in which he crumbled his bread and
+handled his knife and fork showed that his mind was as busy as a mill. He
+was oblivious to his surroundings; had forgotten his companions. His mind
+had more to occupy it than one brief lifetime could hope to compass. Yet
+he was so clearly a man in authority that a casual observer could
+scarcely have failed to perceive that these devout pilgrims, from Italy,
+from France, from far-off Poland, and Saragossa close at hand in
+Catalonia, had come to meet him and were subordinate to him.
+
+It was probably no small task to command such men as Evasio Mon--and the
+other four seemed no less pliable behind their gentle smile.
+
+When the dessert had been placed on the table and one or two had
+reflectively eaten a baked almond, more from habit than desire, the
+little wizened man looked round the table with the manner of a rather
+absent-minded host.
+
+"It is eight o'clock," he said in French. "The monastery gate closes at
+half-past. We have no time to discuss our business at this table. Shall
+we go within the monastery gates? There is a seat by the wall, near the
+fountain, in the courtyard--"
+
+He rose as he spoke, and it became at once apparent that this was a great
+man. For all stood aside as he passed out, and one opened the door as to
+a prince; of which amenities he took no heed.
+
+The monastery is built against the sheer side of the mountain, perched on
+a cornice, like a huge eagle's nest. The buildings have no pretense to
+architectural beauty, and consist of barrack-like houses built around a
+quadrangle. The chapel is at the farther end, and is, of course, the
+centre of interest. Here is kept the sacred image, which has survived so
+many chances and changes; which, hidden for a hundred and fifty years in
+a cavern on the mountainside, made itself known at last by a miraculous
+illumination at night, and for the further guidance of the faithful gave
+forth a sweet scent. It, moreover, selected this spot for its shrine by
+jibbing under the immediate eye of a bishop, and refusing to be carried
+further up the mountain.
+
+The house of Santa Maria de Jesu has the advantage of being at the outer
+end of the quadrangle, and thus having no house opposite to it, faces a
+sheer fall of three thousand feet. A fountain splashes in the courtyard
+below, and a low wall forms a long seat where the devout pass the evening
+hours in that curt and epigrammatic conversation, which is more peaceful
+than the quick talk of Frenchmen, and deeper than the babble of Italy.
+
+It was to this wall that the little wizened man led the way, and here
+seated himself with a gesture, inviting his companions to do the same.
+Had any idle observer been interested in their movements he would have
+concluded that these were four travelers, probably pilgrims of the better
+class, who had made acquaintance at the table d'hôte.
+
+"I have come a long way," said the little man at once, speaking in the
+rather rounded French of the Italian born, "and have left Rome at a time
+when the Church requires the help of even the humblest of her servants--I
+hope our good Mon has something important and really effective this time
+to communicate."
+
+Mon smiled at the implied reproach.
+
+"And I, too, have come from far--from Warsaw," said the stout man,
+breathing hard, as if to illustrate the length of his journey. "Let us
+hope that there is something tangible this time."
+
+He spoke with the gaiety and lightness of a Frenchman; for this was that
+Frenchman of the North, a Pole.
+
+Mon lighted a cigarette, with a gay jerk of the match towards the last
+speaker, indicative of his recognition of a jest.
+
+"Something," continued the Pole, "more than great promises--something
+more stable than a castle--in Spain. Ha, ha! You have not taken Pampeluna
+yet, my friend. One does not hear that Bilboa has fallen into the hands
+of the Carlists. Every time we meet you ask for money. You must arrange
+to give us something--for our money, my friend."
+
+"I will arrange," answered Mon in his quiet, neat enunciation, "to give
+you a kingdom."
+
+And he inclined his head forward to look at the Pole through the upper
+half of his gold-rimmed glasses.
+
+"And not a vague republic in the region of the North Pole," said the
+stout man with a laugh. "Well, who lives shall see."
+
+"You want more money--is that it?" inquired the little wizened man, who
+seemed to be the leader though he spoke the least--a not unusual
+characteristic.
+
+"Yes," replied the Spaniard.
+
+"Your country has cost us much this year," said the little man, blinking
+his colourless eyes and staring at the ground as if making a mental
+calculation. "You have forced Germany and France into war. You have made
+France withdraw her troops from Rome, and you gave Victor Emmanuel the
+chance he awaited. You have given all Europe--the nerves."
+
+"And now is the moment to play on those nerves," said Mon.
+
+"With your clumsy Don Carlos?"
+
+"It is not the man--it is the Cause. Remember that we are an ignorant
+nation. It is the ignorant and the half educated who sacrifice all for a
+cause."
+
+"It is a pity you cannot buy a new Don Carlos with our money," put in the
+Pole.
+
+"This one will serve," was the reply. "One must look to the future. Many
+have been ruined by success, because it took them by surprise. In case we
+succeed, this one will serve. The Church does not want its kings to be
+capable--remember that."
+
+"But what does Spain want?" inquired the leader.
+
+"Spain doesn't know."
+
+"And this Prince of ours, whom you have asked to be your king. Is not
+that a spoke in your wheel?" asked the man of few words.
+
+"A loose spoke which will drop out. No one--not even Prim--thinks that he
+will last ten years. He may not last ten months."
+
+"But you have to reckon with the man. This son of Victor Emmanuel is
+clever and capable. One can never tell what may arise in a brain that
+works beneath a crown."
+
+"We have reckoned with him. He is honest. That tells his tale. No honest
+king can hope to reign over this country in their new Constitution. It
+needs a Bourbon or a woman."
+
+The quick, colourless eyes rested on Mon's face for a moment, and--who
+knows?--perhaps they picked up Mon's secret in passing.
+
+"Something dishonest, in a word," put in the Pole.
+
+But nobody heeded him; for the word was with the leader.
+
+"When last we met," he said at length, "and you received a large sum of
+money, you made a distinct promise; unless my memory deceives me."
+
+He paused, and no one suggested that his memory had ever made slip or
+lapse in all his long career.
+
+"You said you would not ask for money again unless you could show
+something tangible--a fortress taken and held, a great General bought, a
+Province won. Is that so?"
+
+"Yes," answered Mon.
+
+"Or else," continued the speaker, "in order to meet the very just
+complaint from other countries, such as Poland for instance, that Spain
+has had more than her share of the common funds--you would lay before us
+some proposal of self-help, some proof that Spain in asking for help is
+prepared to help herself by a sacrifice of some sort."
+
+"I said that I would not ask for any sum that I could not double," said
+Mon.
+
+The little man sat blinking for some minutes silent in that absolute
+stillness which is peculiar to great heights--and is so marked at
+Montserrat that many cannot sleep there.
+
+"I will give you any sum that you can double," he said, at length.
+
+"Then I will ask you for three million pesetas."
+
+
+All turned and looked at him in wonder. The fat man gave a gasp. With
+three million pesetas he could have made a Polish republic. Mon only
+smiled.
+
+"For every million pesetas that you show me," said the little man, "I
+will hand you another million--cash for cash. When shall we begin?"
+
+"You must give me time," answered Mon, reflectively. "Say six months
+hence."
+
+The little man rose in response to the chapel bell, which was slowly
+tolling for the last service of the day.
+
+"Come," he said, "let us say a prayer before we go to bed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE ALTERNATIVE
+The letter written by the Count de Sarrion to his son was delivered to
+Marcos, literally from hand to hand, by the messenger to whose care it
+was entrusted.
+
+So fully did the mountaineer carry out his instructions, that after
+standing on the river bank for some minutes, he deliberately walked
+knee-deep into the water and touched Marcos on the elbow. For the river
+is a loud one, and Marcos, intent on his sport, never turned his head to
+look about him.
+
+This, the last of the Sarrions, was a patient looking man, with the quiet
+eyes of one who deals with Nature, and the slow movements of the
+far-sighted. For Nature is always consistent, and never hurries those who
+watch her closely to obey the laws she writes so large in the instincts
+of man and beast.
+
+The messenger gave his master the letter and then stood with the water
+rustling past his woollen stockings. There was an odd suggestion of
+brotherhood between these men of very different birth. For as men are
+equal in the sight of God, so are those dimly like each other who live in
+the open air and cast their lives upon the broad bosom of Nature.
+
+Marcos handed his rod to the messenger, whose face, wrinkled like a
+walnut by the sun of Aragon, lighted up suddenly with pleasure.
+
+"There," he said, pointing to a swirling pool beneath some alders. "There
+is a big one there, I have risen him once."
+
+He waded slowly back to the bank where a second crop of hay was already
+showing its new green, and sat down.
+
+It seemed that Marcos de Sarrion was behind the times--these new and
+wordy times into which Spain has floundered so disastrously since Charles
+III was king--for he gave a deeper attention to the matter in hand than
+most have time for. He turned from the hard task of catching a trout in
+clear water beneath a sunny sky, and gave his attention to his father's
+letter.
+
+"After all," it read, "I want you, and await you in Saragossa."
+
+And that was all. "Marcos will come," the Count had reflected, "without
+persuasion. And explanations are dangerous."
+
+In which he was right. For this river, known as the Wolf, in which Marcos
+was peacefully fishing, was one of those Northern tributaries of the Ebro
+which have run with blood any time this hundred years. The country,
+moreover, that it drained was marked in the Government maps as a blank
+country, or one that paid no taxes, and knew not the uniform of the
+Government troops.
+
+Torre Garda, the long two-storied house crowning a hill-top farther up
+the valley of the Wolf, was one of the few country houses that have not
+stood empty since the forties. And all the valley of the Wolf, from the
+grim Pyrenees standing sentinel at its head to the sunny plain almost in
+sight of Pampeluna, where the Wolf merges into other streams, was held
+quiescent in the grip of the Sarrions.
+
+"We will fight," said the men of this valley, "for the king, when we have
+a king worth fighting for. And we will always fight for ourselves."
+
+And it was said that they only repeated what the Sarrions had told them.
+At all events, no Carlists came that way.
+
+"Torre Garda is not worth holding," they said.
+
+"And you cannot hold Pampeluna unless you take Torre Garda first,"
+thought those who knew the art of guerilla warfare.
+
+So the valley of the Wolf awaited a king worth fighting for, and in the
+meantime they paid no taxes, enjoyed no postal service, and were perhaps
+none the worse without it.
+
+There were Carlists over the mountains on either side of the valley.
+Eternal snow closed the northern end of it and fed the Wolf in the summer
+heats. Down at the mouth of the valley where the road was wide enough for
+two carts to pass each other, and a carriage could be driven at the trot,
+there often passed a patrol from the Royalist stronghold of Pampeluna.
+But the Government troops never ventured up the valley which was like a
+mouse-hole with a Carlist cat waiting round the corner to cut them off.
+Neither did the Carlists hazard themselves through the narrow defile
+where the Wolf rushed down its straightened gate; for there were forty
+thousand men in Pampeluna, only ten miles away.
+
+Which reasons were sound enough to dictate caution in any written word
+that might pass from the Count in Saragossa to his son at Torre Garda.
+
+A white dog with one yellow and black ear--a dog that might have been a
+nightmare, a bad, distorted dream of a pointer--stood in front of Marcos
+de Sarrion as he read the letter and seemed to await the hearing of its
+contents.
+
+There are many persons of doubtful social standing, who seek to make
+up--to bridge that narrow and unfathomable gulf--by affability. This dog
+it seemed, knowing that he was not quite a pointer, sought to conciliate
+humanity by an eagerness, by a pathetic and blundering haste to try and
+understand what was expected of him and to perform the same without
+delay, which was quite foreign to the nature of the real breed.
+
+In Spain one addresses a man by the plain term: Man. And after all, it is
+something--deja quelque chose--to be worthy of that name. This dog was
+called Perro, which being translated is Dog. He had been a waif in his
+early days, some stray from the mountains near the frontier, where dogs
+are trained to smuggle. Full of zeal, he had probably smuggled too
+eagerly. Marcos had found him, half starved, far up the valley of the
+Wolf. He had not been deemed worthy of a baptismal name and had been
+called the Dog--and admitted as such to the outbuildings of Torre Garda.
+From thence he had worked his humble way upwards. By patience and comfort
+his mind slowly expanded until men almost forgot that this was a
+disgraceful mongrel.
+
+Perro had risen from a slumberous contemplation of the tumbling water and
+now stood awaiting orders, his near hind leg shaking with eagerness to
+please, by running anywhere at any pace.
+
+Marcos never spoke to his dog. He had seen Spain humbled to the dust by
+babble, and the sight had, perhaps, dried up the spring of his speech.
+For he rarely spoke idly. If he had anything to say, he said it. But if
+he had nothing, he was silent. Which is, of course, fatal to social
+advancement, and set him at one stroke outside the pale of political
+life. Spain at this time, and, indeed, during the last thirty years, had
+been the happy hunting ground of the beau sabreur, of those (of all men,
+most miserable) who owe their success in life to a woman's favour.
+
+This silent Spaniard might, perhaps, have made for himself a name in the
+world's arena in other days; for he had a spark of that genius which
+creates a leader. But fate had ruled that he should have no wider sphere
+than an obscure Pyrenean gorge, no greater a following than the men of
+the Valley of the Wolf. These he held in an iron grip. Within his deep
+and narrow head lay the secret which neither Madrid nor Bayonne could
+ever understand; why the Valley of the Wolf was neither Royalist nor
+Carlist. The quiet, slow eyes had alone seen into the hearts of the wild
+Navarrese mountaineers and knew the way to rule them.
+
+It may be thought that their small number made the task an easy one. But
+it must also be remembered that these mountain slopes have given to the
+world the finest guerilla soldiers that history has known, and are
+peopled by one of the untamed races of mankind.
+
+Moreover, Marcos de Sarrion was a restful man. And those few who see
+below the surface, know that the restful man is he whose life's task is
+well within the compass of his ability.
+
+Perro, it seemed, with an intelligence developed at the best and hardest
+of all schools, where hunger is the usher, awaited, not word, but action
+from his master; and had not long to wait.
+
+For Marcos rose and slowly climbed the hill towards Torre Garda, half
+hidden amid the pine trees on the mountain crest above him. There was a
+midnight train, he knew, from Pampeluna to Saragossa. The railway station
+was only twenty miles away, which is to this day considered quite a
+convenient distance in Navarre. There would be a moon soon after
+nightfall. There was plenty of time. That far-off ancestress of the
+middle-ages had, it would appear, handed down to her sons forever, with
+the clear cut profile, the philosophy which allows itself time to get
+through life unruffled.
+
+The Count de Sarrion was taking his early coffee the next morning at the
+open window in Saragossa when Marcos, with the dust of travel across the
+Alkali desert still upon him, came into the room.
+
+"I expected you," said the father. "You will like a bath. All is ready in
+your room. I have seen to it myself. When you are ready come back here
+and take your coffee."
+
+His attitude was almost that of a host. For Marcos rarely came to
+Saragossa. Although there was a striking resemblance of feature between
+the Sarrions, the father was taller, slighter and quicker in his glance,
+while Marcos' face seemed to bespeak a greater strength. In any common
+purpose it would assuredly fall to Marcos' lot to execute that which his
+father had conceived. The older man's presence suggested the Court, while
+Marcos was clearly intended for the Camp.
+
+The Count de Sarrion had passed through both and had emerged half
+cynical, half indifferent from the slough of an evil woman's downfall.
+
+"You would have made a good soldier," he said to Marcos, when his son at
+last came home to Torre Garda with an education completed in England and
+France. "But there is no opening for an honest man in the Spanish Army.
+Honesty is in the gutter in Spain to-day."
+
+And Marcos always followed his father's advice. Later he found that Spain
+indeed offered no career to honest men at this time. Gradually he
+supplanted his father in an unrecognised, indefinable monarchy in the
+Valley of the Wolf; and there, in the valley, they waited; as good
+Spaniards have waited these hundred years until such time as God's wrath
+shall be overpast.
+
+"I have a long story to tell you," said the Count, when his son returned
+and sat down at once with a keen appetite to his first breakfast of
+coffee and bread. "And I will tell it without comment, without prejudice,
+if I can."
+
+Marcos nodded. The Count had lighted a cigarette and now leant against
+the window which opened on to the heavily barred balcony overlooking the
+Calle San Gregorio.
+
+"Four nights ago," he said, "at about midnight, Francisco de Mogente
+returned secretly to Saragossa. I think he was coming to this house; but
+we shall never know that. No one knew he was coming--not even Juanita."
+
+The Count glanced at his son only long enough to note the passage of a
+sort of shadow across his dark eyes at the mention of the schoolgirl's
+name.
+
+"Francisco was attacked in the street down there, at the corner of the
+Calle San Gregorio, and was killed," he concluded.
+
+Marcos rose and crossed the room towards the window. He was, it appeared,
+an eminently practical man, and desired to see the exact spot where
+Mogente had fallen before the story went any farther. Perro went so far
+as to push his plebeian head through the bars and look down into the
+street. It was his misfortune to fall into the fault of excess as it is
+the misfortune of most parvenus.
+
+"Does Juanita know?" asked Marcos.
+
+"Yes. My sister Dolores has told her. Poor child! It is more in the
+nature of a disappointment than a sorrow. Her heart is young; and
+disappointment is the sorrow of the young."
+
+Marcos sat down again in silence.
+
+"We must remember," said the Count, "that she never knew him. It will
+pass. I saw the incident from this window. There is no door at this side
+of the house. I should, as you know, have had to go round by the Paseo
+del Ebro. To render help was out of the question. I went down afterwards,
+however, when help had come and the dying man had been carried away--by a
+friar, Marcos! I had seen something fall from the hand of the murdered
+man. I went down into the street and picked it up. It was the sword-stick
+which Juanita sent to her father for the New Year."
+
+"Why did he not let us know that he was coming to Europe?" asked Marcos.
+
+"Ah! That he will tell us hereafter. The mere fact of his being attacked
+in the streets of Saragossa and killed for the money that was in his
+pockets is, of course, quite simple, and common enough. But why should he
+be cared for by a friar, and taken to one of those numerous religious
+houses which have sprung into unseen existence all over Spain since the
+Jesuits were expelled?"
+
+"Has he left a will?" asked Marcos.
+
+Sarrion turned and looked at him with a short laugh. He threw his
+cigarette away, and coming into the room, sat down in front of the small
+table where Marcos was still satisfying his honest and simple appetite.
+
+"I have told my story badly," he said, with a curt laugh, "and spoilt it.
+You have soon seen through it. Mogente made a will on his
+death-bed--which was, by the way, witnessed by Leon de Mogente as a
+supernumerary, not a legal witness--just to show that all was square and
+above board."
+
+"Then he left his money--?"
+
+"To Juanita. One can only conclude that he was wandering in mind when he
+did it. For he was fond of her, I think. He had no reason to wish her
+harm. I have picked up what unconsidered trifles of information I can,
+but they do not amount to much. I cabled to Cuba for news as to Mogente's
+fortune; for we know that he has made one. There is the reply." He handed
+Marcos a telegram which bore the words:
+
+"Three million pesetas in the English Funds."
+
+"That is the millstone that he has tied round Juanita's neck," said
+Sarrion, folding the paper and returning it to his pocket.
+
+"To saddle with three million pesetas a girl who is at a convent school,
+in the hands of the Sisters of the True Faith, when the Carlist cause is
+dying for want of funds, and the Jesuits know that it is Don Carlos or a
+Republic, and all the world knows that all republics have been fatal to
+the Society--bah!" the Count threw out his hands in a gesture of despair.
+"It is to throw her into a convent, bound hand and foot. We cannot leave
+that poor girl without help, Marcos."
+
+"No," said Marcos, gently.
+
+"There is only one way--I have thought of it night and day. There is only
+one way, my friend."
+
+Marcos looked at his father thoughtfully, and waited to hear what that
+way might be.
+
+"You must marry her," said the Count.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE TRAIL
+The Count rose again and went to the window without looking at Marcos.
+They had lived together like brothers, and like brothers, they had fallen
+into the habit of closing the door of silence upon certain subjects.
+
+Juanita, it would appear, was one of these. For neither was at ease while
+speaking of her. Spaniards and Germans and Englishmen are not notable for
+a pretty and fanciful treatment of the subject of love. But they approach
+it with a certain shy delicacy of which the lighter Latin heart has no
+conception.
+
+The Count glanced over his shoulder, and Marcos, without looking up, must
+have seen the action, for he took the opportunity of shaking his head.
+
+"You shake your head," said Sarrion, with a sort of effort to be gay and
+careless, "What do you want? She is the prettiest girl in Aragon."
+
+"It is not that," said Marcos, curtly, with a flush on his brown face.
+
+"Then what is it?"
+
+Marcos made no answer. The Count lighted another cigarette, to gain time,
+perhaps.
+
+"Listen to me," he said at length. "We have always understood each other,
+except about Juanita. We have nearly always been of the same mind--you
+and I."
+
+Marcos was leaning his arms on the table and looked across the room
+towards his father with a slow smile.
+
+"Let us try and understand each other about Juanita before we go any
+farther. You think that there may be thoughts in your mind which are
+beyond my comprehension. It may not be as bad as that. I allow you, that
+as the heart grows older it loses a certain sensitiveness and delicacy of
+feeling. Still the comprehension of such feelings in younger persons may
+survive. You think that Juanita should be allowed to make her own choice
+--is it not so--learnt in England, eh?"
+
+"Yes," was the answer.
+
+"And I reply to that; a convent education--the only education open to
+Spanish girls--does not fit her to make her own choice."
+
+"It is not a question of education.
+
+"No, it is a question of opportunity," said Sarrion sharply. "And a
+convent schoolgirl has no opportunity. My friend, a father or a mother,
+if they are wise, will choose better than a girl thrown suddenly into the
+world from the convent gates. But that is not the question. Juanita will
+never get outside the convent gates unless we drag her from them--half
+against her own will."
+
+"We can give her the choice. We have certain rights."
+
+"No rights," replied Sarrion, "that the Church will recognise, and the
+Church holds her now within its grip."
+
+"She is only a child. She does not know what life means."
+
+"Exactly so," Sarrion exclaimed, "and that makes their plan all the
+easier of execution. They can bring pressure to bear upon her assiduously
+and quite kindly so that she will be brought to see that her only chance
+of happiness is the veil. Few men, and no women at all, can be happy in a
+life of their own choosing if they are assured by persons in daily
+intercourse with them--persons whom they respect and love--that in living
+that life they will assuredly be laying up for themselves an eternity of
+damnation. We must try and look at it from Juanita's point of view."
+
+Marcos turned and glanced at his father with a smile.
+
+"That is not so easy," he said. "That is what I have been trying to do."
+
+"But you must not overdo it," replied Sarrion, significantly. "Remember
+that her point of view may be an ignorant one and must be biassed by the
+strongest and most dangerous influence. Look at the question also from
+the point of view of a man of the world--and tell me... tell me after
+thinking it over carefully--whether you think that you would feel happy
+in the future, knowing that you had allowed Juanita to choose a convent
+life with her eyes blinded."
+
+"I was not thinking of my happiness," said Marcos, quite simply and
+curtly.
+
+"Of Juanita's happiness?" ... suggested the Count.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then think again and tell me whether you, as a man of the world, can for
+a moment imagine that Juanita's chance of happiness would be greater in
+the convent--whether the Church could make her happier than you could if
+you give her the opportunity of leading the life that God created her
+for."
+
+Marcos made no answer. And oddly enough Sarrion seemed to expect none.
+
+"That is ...," he explained in the same careless voice, "if we may go on
+the presumption that you are content to place Juanita's happiness before
+your own."
+
+"I am content to do that."
+
+"Always?" asked Sarrion, gravely.
+
+"Always."
+
+There was a short silence. Then the Count came into the room, and as he
+passed Marcos he laid his hand for a moment on his son's broad back.
+
+"Then, my friend," he said, crossing the room and taking up his gloves,
+"let us get to action. That will please you better than words, I know.
+Let us go and see Leon--the weakest link in their fine chain. Juanita has
+no one in the world but us--but I think we shall be enough."
+
+Leon de Mogente lived in an apartment in the Plaza del Pilar. His father,
+for whom he had but little affection, had made him a liberal allowance
+which had been spent, so to speak, on his Soul. It elevated the Spirit of
+this excellent young man to decorate his rooms in imitation of a
+sanctuary.
+
+He lived in an atmosphere of aesthetic emotion which he quite mistook for
+holiness. He was a dandy in the care of his Soul, and tricked himself out
+to catch the eye of High Heaven.
+
+The Marquis de Mogente was out. He had crossed the Plaza, the servant
+thought to say a prayer in the Cathedral. On the suggestion of the
+servant, the Sarrions decided to wait until Leon's return. The man, who
+had the air of a murderer (or a Spanish Cathedral chorister), volunteered
+to go and seek his master.
+
+"I can say a prayer myself," he said humbly.
+
+"And here is something to put in the poor-box," answered Sarrion with his
+twisted smile.
+
+"By my soul," he exclaimed, when they were left alone, "this place reeks
+of hypocrisy."
+
+He looked round the walls with a raised eyebrow.
+
+"I have been trying to discover," he went on, "what was in the mind of
+Francisco as he lay dying in that house in the Calle San Gregorio--what
+he was trying to carry out--why he made that will. He sent for Leon, you
+see, and must have seen at a glance that he had for a son--a mule, of the
+worst sort. He probably saw that to leave money to Leon was to give it to
+the Church, which meant that it would be spent for the further undoing of
+Spain and the propagation of ignorance and superstition."
+
+For Ramon de Sarrion was one of those good Spaniards and good Catholics
+who lay the entire blame for the downfall of their country from its great
+estate to a Church, which can only hope to live in its present form as
+long as superstition and crass ignorance prevail.
+
+"I cannot help thinking," he went on, "that Francisco dimly perceived
+that he was the victim of a careful plot--one sees something like that in
+all these ramifications. Three million pesetas are worth scheming for.
+They would make a difference in any cause. They might make all the
+difference at this moment in Spain. Kingdoms have been won and lost for
+less than three million pesetas. I believe he was watched in Cuba, and
+his return was known. Or perhaps he was brought back by some clever
+forgery. Who knows? At all events, it was known that he had left his
+money nearly all to Leon."
+
+"We will ask Leon," suggested Marcos, "what reason his father gave for
+making a new will."
+
+"And he will lie to you," said Sarrion.
+
+"But he will lie badly," murmured Marcos, with his leisurely reflective
+smile.
+
+"I think," said Sarrion, after a pause, "nay, I feel sure that Francisco
+left his fortune to Juanita at the last moment, as a forlorn
+hope--leaving it to you and me to get her out of the hobble in which he
+placed her. You know it was always his hope that you and Juanita should
+marry."
+
+But Marcos' face hardened, and he had nothing to say to this reiteration
+of the dead man's hope. The silence was not again broken before Leon de
+Mogente came in.
+
+He looked from one to the other with an apprehensive glance. His pale
+eyes had that dulness which betokens, if not an absorption in the things
+to come, that which often passes for the same, an incompetence to face
+the present moment.
+
+"I was about to write to you," he said, addressing himself to Sarrion. "I
+am having a mass celebrated tomorrow in the Cathedral. My father, I
+know... "
+
+"I shall be there," said Sarrion, rather shortly.
+
+"And Marcos?"
+
+"I, also," replied Marcos.
+
+"One must do what one can," said Leon, with a resigned sigh.
+
+Marcos, the man of action and not of words, looked at him and said
+nothing. He was perhaps noticing that the dishonest boy had grown into a
+dishonest man. Monastic religion is like a varnish, it only serves to
+bring out the true colour, and is powerless to alter it by more than a
+shade. Those who have lived in religious communities know that human
+nature is the same there as in the world--that a man who is not
+straightforward may grow in monastic zeal day by day, but he will never
+grow straightforward. On the other hand, if a man be a good man, religion
+will make him better, but it must not be a religion that runs to words.
+
+Leon sat with folded hands and lowered eyes. He was a sort of amateur
+monk, and, like all amateurs, he was apt to exaggerate outward signs. It
+was Marcos who spoke at length.
+
+
+"Do you intend," he asked in his matter-of-fact way, "to make any effort
+to discover and punish your father's assassins?"
+
+"I have been advised not to."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+Leon looked distressed. He was pained, it would seem, that the friend of
+his childhood should step so bluntly on to delicate ground.
+
+"It is a secret of the confession."
+
+Marcos exchanged a grave glance with his father, who sat back in his
+chair as one may see a leader sit back while his junior counsel conducts
+an able cross-examination.
+
+"Have you advised Juanita of the terms of her father's will?"
+
+"I understand," answered Leon, "that it will make but little difference
+to Juanita. She has her allowance as I have mine. My father, I
+understand, had but little to bequeath to her."
+
+Marcos glanced at his father again, and then at the clock. He had, it
+appeared, finished his cross-examination, and was now characteristically
+anxious to get to action.
+
+Sarrion now took the lead in conversation, and proffered the usual
+condolences and desire to help, in the formal Spanish way. He could
+hardly conceal his contempt for Leon, who, for his part, was not free
+from embarrassment. They had nothing in common but the subject which had
+brought the Sarrions hither, and upon this point they could not progress
+satisfactorily, seeing that Sarrion himself had evidently sustained a
+greater loss than the dead man's own son.
+
+They rose and took leave, promising to attend the mass next day. Leon
+became interested again at once in this side of the question, which was
+not without a thrill of novelty for him. He had organised and taken part
+in many interesting and gorgeous ceremonies. But a requiem mass for one's
+own father must necessarily be unique in the most varied career of
+religious emotion. He was a little flurried, as a girl is flurried at her
+first ball, and felt that the eye of the black-letter saints was upon
+him.
+
+He shook hands absent-mindedly with his friends, and was already making
+mental note of their addition to the number secured for to-morrow's
+ceremony. He was very earnest about it, and Marcos left him with a sudden
+softening of the heart towards him, such as the strong must always feel
+for the weak.
+
+"You see," said Sarrion, when they were in the street, "what Evasio Mon
+has made him. I do not know whether you are disposed to hand over Juanita
+and her three million pesetas to Evasio Mon as well."
+
+Marcos made no reply, but walked on, wrapt in thought.
+
+"I must see Juanita," he said, at length, after a long silence, and
+Sarrion's wise eyes were softened by a smile which flitted across them
+like a flash of sunlight across a darkened field.
+
+"Remember," he said, "that Juanita is a child. She cannot be expected to
+know her own mind for at least three years."
+
+Marcos nodded his head, as if he knew what was coming.
+
+"And remember that the danger is imminent--that Evasio Mon is not the man
+to let the grass grow beneath his feet--that we cannot let Juanita
+wait... three weeks."
+
+"I know," answered Marcos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE QUARRY
+Sarrion called at the convent school of the Sisters of the True Faith the
+next morning, and was informed through the grating that the school was in
+Retreat.
+
+"Even I, whose duty it is to speak to you, shall have to perform penance
+for doing so," said the doorkeeper, in her soft voice through the bars.
+
+"Then do an extra penance, my sister," returned Sarrion, "and answer
+another question. Tell me if the Sor Teresa is within?"
+
+"The Sor Teresa is at Pampeluna, and the Mother Superior is here in the
+school herself. The Sor Teresa is only Sister Superior, you must know,
+and is therefore subordinate to the Mother Superior."
+
+Sarrion was a pleasant-spoken man, and a man of the world. He knew that
+if a woman has something to tell of another she is not to be frightened
+into silence by the whole Court of Cardinals and eke, the Pope of Rome
+himself. So he drew his horse nearer to the forbidding wooden gate, and
+did not ride away from it until he had gained some scraps of information
+and saddled the lay sister with a burden of penances to last all through
+the Retreat.
+
+He learnt that his sister had been sent to Pampeluna, where the Sisters
+of the True Faith conducted another school, much patronised by the poor
+nobility of that priest-ridden city. He was made to understand, moreover,
+that Juanita de Mogente had been given special opportunities for prayer
+and meditation owing to an unchristian spirit of resentment and revenge,
+which she had displayed on learning the Will of Heaven in regard to her
+abandoned, and it was to be feared, heretic father.
+
+"Which means, my sister?"
+
+"That neither you nor any other in the world may see or speak to her--but
+I must close the grille."
+
+And the little shutter was sharply shut in Sarrion's face.
+
+This was the beginning of a quest which, for a fortnight, continued
+entirely fruitless. Evasio Mon it appeared was on a pilgrimage. Sor
+Teresa had gone to Pampeluna. The inexorable gate of the convent school
+remained shut to all comers.
+
+Sarrion went to Pampeluna to see his sister, but came back without having
+attained his object. Marcos took up the trail with a patient thoroughness
+learnt at the best school--the school of Nature. He was without haste,
+and expressed neither hope nor discouragement. But he realised more and
+more clearly that Juanita was in genuine danger. By one or two moves in
+this subtle warfare, Sarrion had forced his adversary to unmask his
+defenses. Some of the obstructions behind which Juanita was now concealed
+could scarcely have originated in chance.
+
+Marcos had, in the course of his long antagonism against wolf or bear or
+boar in the Central Pyrenees, more than once experienced that sharp shock
+of astonishment and fear to which the big-game hunter can scarcely remain
+indifferent when he finds himself opposed by an unmistakable sign of an
+intelligence equal to his own or an instinct superior to it, subtly
+meeting his subtle attack. This he experienced now, and knew that he
+himself was being watched and his every action forestalled. The effect
+was to make him the more dogged, the more cunning in his quest. Because
+he knew that Juanita's cause was in competent hands, or for some other
+reason, Sarrion withdrew from taking such an active part as heretofore.
+
+His keen and careful eyes noted a change in Marcos. Juanita's
+helplessness seemed to have aroused a steady determination to help her at
+any cost. Weakness is an appeal that strength rarely resists.
+
+It was Marcos who finally discovered an opportunity, and with
+characteristic patience he sifted it, and organised a plan of action
+before making anything known to his father.
+
+"There is a service in the Cathedral of La Seo tomorrow evening," he
+announced suddenly at midnight one night on his return from a long and
+tiring day. "All the girls of the convent schools will be there."
+
+"Ah!" said Sarrion, looking his son up and down with a speculative eye.
+"Well?"
+
+"My aunt... Sor Teresa... is likely to be there. She has returned to
+Saragossa to-day. The Mother Superior--by the grace of God--has
+indigestion. I have got a letter safely through to Sor Teresa. The
+service is at seven o'clock. The Archbishop will go in procession round
+the Cathedral to bless the people. The Cathedral is very dark. There will
+be considerable confusion when the doors are opened and the people crowd
+out. I have a few men--of the road, from the Posada de los Reyes--who
+will add to the confusion under my instructions. I think if you help me
+we can get Juanita separated from the rest. I will take her home and see
+to it that she arrives at the school at the same time as the others. We
+can arrange it, I think."
+
+"Yes," answered Sarrion. "I have no doubt that we can arrange it."
+
+And they sat far into the night, after the manner of conspirators,
+discussing Marcos' plans, which were, like himself, quite simple and
+direct.
+
+The Cathedral of the Seo in Saragossa is one of the most ancient in
+Spain, and bears in its architecture some resemblance to the Moorish
+mosque that once stood on the same spot. It is a huge square building,
+dimly lighted by windows set high up in the stupendous roof. The choir is
+a square set down in the middle--a church within a Cathedral. There are
+two principal entrances, one on the Plaza de la Seo, where the fountain
+is, and where, in the sunshine, the philosophers of Saragossa sit and do
+nothing from morn till eve. The other entrance is that which is known as
+the grand portal, and with a wrong-headedness characteristic of the
+Peninsular, it is situated in a little street where no man passes.
+
+Marcos knew that the grand portal was used by the religious communities
+and devout persons who came to church for the good motive, while those
+who praised God that man might see them entered, and quitted the
+Cathedral by the more public doorway on the Plaza. He knew also that the
+convent schools took their station just within the great porch, which,
+during the day, is the parade ground for those authorised beggars who
+wear their number and licence suspended round their necks as a guarantee
+of good faith.
+
+The Cathedral was crammed to suffocation when Marcos and his father
+entered by this door. At the foot of the shallow steps descending from
+the porch to the floor of the Cathedral, Sor Teresa's white cap rose
+above the heads of the people. Here and there a nun's cap or the blue
+veil of a nursing sister showed itself amidst the black mantillas. Here
+and there the white head of some old man made its mark among the sunburnt
+faces. For there were as many men as women present. The majority of them
+looked about them as at a show, but all were silent and respectful. All
+made room readily enough for any who wished to kneel. There was no
+pushing, no impatience. All were polite and forbearing.
+
+The Archbishop's procession had already left the door of the choir, and
+was moving slowly round the building. It was preceded by a chorister and
+a boy, who sang in unison with a strange, uncomfortable echo in the roof.
+Immediately on their heels followed a man in his usual outdoor clothes,
+who accompanied them on a haut-boy with queer, snorting notes, and nodded
+to his friends as he perceived their faces dimly looming in the light of
+the flickering candles carried by acolytes behind him.
+
+They stopped at intervals and sang a verse. Then the organ, far above
+their heads, rolled in its solemn notes, and the whole choir broke into
+song as they moved on.
+
+The Archbishop, preceded by the Host borne aloft beneath a silken canopy,
+wore a long red silk robe, of which the train was carried by two careless
+acolytes, a red silk biretta and red gloves.
+
+As the Host passed the people knelt and rose, and knelt again as the
+Archbishop came--a sort of human tide, rising and kneeling and rising
+again, to dust their knees and stare about them, which was not without a
+symbolical meaning for those who know the history of the Church in Latin
+countries.
+
+The face of the Archbishop struck a sudden and startling note of
+sincerity as he passed on with upheld hand and eyes turning from side to
+side with a luminous look of love and tenderness as he silently invoked
+God's blessing on these his people. He passed on, leaving in some
+doubting hearts, perhaps, the knowledge that amid much that was mistaken,
+and tawdry and superstitious and evil, here at all events was one good
+man.
+
+Immediately behind him, came the beadle in vestments and a long flaxen
+wig ill-combed, put on all awry, making room with his staff and hitting
+the people if they would not leave off praying and get out of the way.
+
+Then followed the choir--a living study in evil countenances--
+perfunctory, careless, snuff-blown and ill-shaven, with cold hard faces
+like Inquisitors.
+
+All the while the great bell was booming overhead, and the whole
+atmosphere seemed to vibrate with sound and emotion. It was moving and
+impressive, especially for those who think that the Almighty is better
+pleased with abject abasement than a plain common-sense endeavour to do
+better, and will accept a long tale of public penance before the record
+of simple daily duties honestly performed.
+
+Near the great porch on either side of the bishop's path were ranged the
+seminarists, in cassocks of black with a dark blue or red
+hood--depressing looking youths with flaccid faces and an unhealthy eye.
+Behind them stood a group of friars in rough woolen garments of brown,
+with heads clean shaven all but an inch of closely cut hair like a halo
+on a saint. They seemed cheerful and were laughing and joking among
+themselves while the procession passed.
+
+Behind these, on their knees, were the girls of the convent school--and
+all around them closed in the crowd. Juanita was at one end of the row
+and Sor Teresa at the other. Juanita was looking about her. Her special
+opportunities for prayer and reflection had perhaps had the effect that
+such opportunities may be expected to have, and she was a little weary of
+all this to-do about the world to come; for she was young and this
+present world seemed worthy of consideration. She glanced backwards over
+her shoulder as the Archbishop passed with his following of candles, and
+gave a little start. Marcos was kneeling on the pavement behind her. Sor
+Teresa was looking straight in front of her between the wings of her
+great cap. It was hard to say whether she saw Juanita, or was aware that
+a man was kneeling immediately behind herself, almost on the hem of her
+flowing black robes--her own brother, Sarrion.
+
+The procession moved away down the length of the great building and left
+darkness behind it. Already there was a stir among the people, for it was
+late and many had come from a distance.
+
+The great doors, rarely used, were slowly cast open and in the darkness
+the crowd surged forward. Juanita was nearest to the door. She looked
+round and Sor Teresa made a motion with her head telling her to lead the
+way. Marcos was at her side. A few men in cloaks, and some in
+shirt-sleeves, seemed to be grouped by chance around him. He looked back
+and made a little movement of the head towards his father.
+
+Juanita felt herself pushed from behind. Before her, singularly enough,
+was a clear pathway between the crowds. Behind her a thousand people
+pressed forward towards the exit. She hurried out and glancing back on
+the steps saw that she had become separated from the school and from the
+nuns by a number of men. But Marcos' hand was already on her arm.
+
+"Come," he said, "I want to speak to you. It is all right. My father is
+beside Sor Teresa."
+
+"What fun!" she answered in a whisper. "Let us be quick."
+
+And a moment later they were running side by side down a narrow street,
+where a single lamp swung from a gibbet at the corner and flickered in
+the wind of Saragossa.
+
+It was Juanita who stopped suddenly.
+
+"Oh, Marcos," she cried, "I forgot; we are not to walk home. There is an
+omnibus to meet us as usual at these late services."
+
+"It will not come," replied Marcos. "The driver is waiting to tell Sor
+Teresa that his horses are lame and he cannot come."
+
+"And why have you done this?" asked Juanita, looking at him with bright
+eyes beneath her mantilla flying in the wind.
+
+"Because I want to speak to you. We can walk home to the school together.
+It is all arranged. My father is with Sor Teresa."
+
+"What, all the way?" she asked in a delighted voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And can we go through the streets and see the shops?"
+
+"Yes, if you like; if you keep your mantilla close."
+
+"Marcos, you are a dear! But I have no money; you must lend me some."
+
+"Yes, if you like. What do you want to buy?"
+
+"Oh, chocolates," she answered. "Those brown ones, all soft inside. How
+much money have you?"
+
+And she held out her hand in the dim light of the street lamps.
+
+"I will give you the chocolates," he answered. "As many as you like."
+
+"How kind of you. You are a dear. I am so glad to see your solemn old
+face again. I am very hard up. I don't really know where all my
+pocket-money has gone to this term."
+
+She laughed gaily, and turned to look up at him. And in a moment her
+manner changed.
+
+"Oh, Marcos," she said, "I am so miserable. And I have no one to talk to.
+You know--papa is dead."
+
+"Yes," he answered, "know."
+
+"For three days," she went on, "I thought I should die. And then, but I
+am afraid it wasn't prayer, Marcos, I began to feel--better, you know.
+Was it very wicked? Of course I had never seen him. It would have been
+quite different if it had been my dear, darling old Uncle Ramon--or even
+you, Marcos."
+
+"Thank you," said Marcos.
+
+"But I had only his letters, you know, and they were so political! Then I
+felt most extremely angry with Leon for being such a muff. He did nothing
+to try and find out who had killed papa, and go and kill him in return. I
+felt so disgusted that I was not a man. I feel so still, Marcos. This is
+the shop, and those are the chocolates stuck on that sheet of white
+paper. Let us buy the whole sheet. I will pay you back next term."
+
+They entered the shop and there Marcos bought her as many chocolates as
+she could hope to conceal beneath the long ends of her mantilla.
+
+"I will bring you more," he said, "if you will tell me how to get them to
+you."
+
+She assured him that there was nothing simpler; and made him a
+participant in a dead secret only known to a few, of the hole in the
+convent wall, large enough to pass the hand through, down by the
+frog-pond at the bottom of the garden and near the old door which was
+never opened.
+
+"If you wait there on Thursday evening between seven and eight I will
+come, if I can, and will poke my hand through the hole in the wall. But
+how shall I know that it is you?"
+
+"I will kiss your hand when it comes through," answered Marcos.
+
+"Yes," she said, rather slowly. "What a joke."
+
+But now they were at the gate of the convent school, having come a short
+way, and they stood beneath the thick trees until the school came, with
+its usual accompaniment of eager talk like the running of water beneath a
+low bridge and its babble round the stones.
+
+Juanita slipped in among her schoolmates, and Sor Teresa, looking
+straight in front of her, saw nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THISBE
+It was the custom in the convent school on the Torrero-hill to receive
+visitors on Thursdays. This festivity farther extended to the evening,
+when the girls were allowed to walk for an hour in the garden and talk.
+Talking, it must be remembered, as an indulgence of the flesh, is
+considered in religious communities to be a treat only permitted at
+certain periods. It is, indeed, only by tying the tongue that tyranny can
+hope to live.
+
+"These promenades are not without use," the Mother Superior once said to
+Evasio Mon, one of the lay directors of this school. "One discovers what
+friendships have been formed."
+
+But the Mother Superior, like many cunning persons, was wrong. For a
+schoolgirl's friendship is like the seed of grass, blown hither and
+thither; while only one or two of a sowing take root in some hidden
+corner and grow.
+
+Juanita's bosom friend of the red hair had recovered her lost position.
+Her hair was, in fact, golden again. They were walking in the garden at
+sunset, and waiting for the clock of San Fernando to strike seven.
+Juanita had told her friend of the chocolates--all soft inside--which
+were to come through the hole in the wall; and the golden haired girl had
+confided in Juanita that she had never loved her as she did at that
+moment. Which was, perhaps, not unnatural.
+
+The garden of the convent school is large, and spreads far down the slope
+of the hill. There are many fruit-trees and a few cypress. Where the
+stream runs there are bunches of waving bamboos, and at the lower end,
+where the wall is broken, there is a little grove of nut trees, where the
+nightingales sing.
+
+"It must be seven; come, let us go slowly towards the trees," said
+Juanita. They both looked round eagerly. There were two nuns in the
+gardens, gravely walking side by side, casting demure and not unkindly
+glances from time to time towards their gay charges. Juanita and her
+friend had, as elder girls, certain privileges, and were allowed to walk
+apart from the rest. They were heiresses, moreover, which makes a
+difference even in a convent school that shuts the world out with
+forbidding gates.
+
+Juanita bade her friend keep watch, and ran quickly among the trees. The
+wall was old and overgrown with wild roses and honeysuckle. She found the
+hole, and, hastily turning back her sleeve, thrust her arm through. Her
+hand came out through the flowers with an inconsequent, childish flourish
+of the fingers close by the grave face of Marcos. He was essentially a
+man of his word; and she jerked her hand away from his lips with a gay
+laugh.
+
+
+"Marcos," she said, "the packets must be small or they will not come
+through."
+
+"I have had them made small on purpose," he said. But she seemed to have
+forgotten the chocolates already, for her hand did not come back.
+
+"I'm trying to see through," she explained, after a moment. "I can see
+nothing, only something black. I see. It is your horse; you are on
+horseback. Is it the Moor? Have you ridden the dear old Moor up here to
+see me? Please bring his nose near so that I can stroke it."
+
+And her fingers came through the flowers again, feeling the empty air.
+
+"I wonder if he knows my hand," she said. "Oh, Marcos! is there no one to
+take me away from here? I hate the place; and yet I am afraid. I am
+afraid of something, Marcos, and I do not know what it is. It was all
+right when papa was alive. For I felt that he would certainly come some
+day and take me away, and all this would be over."
+
+"All--what?" inquired Marcos, the matter-of-fact, at the other side of
+the wall.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. There is a sort of strain and mystery which I cannot
+define. I am not a coward, you know, but sometimes I am afraid and feel
+alone in the world. There is Leon, of course; but Leon is no good, is
+he?"
+
+"No, he is no good," replied Marcos.
+
+"And, Marcos, do you think it is possible to be in the world and yet be
+saved; to be quite safe, I mean, for the next world, like Sor Teresa?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Does Uncle Ramon think so?"
+
+"Yes," replied Marcos.
+
+"What a bother one's soul is," she said, with a sigh. "I'm sure mine is.
+I am never allowed to think of anything else."
+
+"Why?" asked Marcos, who was a patient searcher after remedies, and never
+discussed matters which could not be ameliorated by immediate action.
+
+"Oh! because it seems that I am more than usually wicked. No one seems to
+think it possible that I can save my soul unless I go into religion."
+
+"And you do not want to do that?"
+
+"No, I never want to do it. Not even when I have been a long time in
+Retreat and we have been happy and quiet, here, inside the walls. And the
+life they lead here seems so little trouble; and one can lay aside that
+nightmare of the world to come. I do not even want it then. But when I go
+into the world, like last Sunday, Marcos, and see the shops, and Uncle
+Ramon and you, then I hate the thought of it. And when I touched the dear
+old Moor's soft nose just now, I felt I couldn't do it at any cost; but
+that I must go into the world and have dogs and horses, and see the
+mountains and enjoy myself, and leave the rest to chance and the kindness
+of the Virgin, Marcos."
+
+He did not answer at once, and she thrust her hand through the woodbine
+again.
+
+"Where are you?" she asked. "Why do you not answer?"
+
+He took her hand and held it for a moment.
+
+"You are thinking," she said, with a little laugh. "I know. I have seen
+you think like that by the side of the river, when one of the trout would
+not come out of the Wolf and you were wondering what more you could do to
+try and make him. What are you thinking about?"
+
+"About you."
+
+"Oh!" she laughed. "You must not take it so seriously as that. Everybody
+is very kind, you know. And I am quite happy here. At least, I think I
+am. Where are the chocolates? I believe you have eaten them on the
+way--you and the Moor. I always said you were the same sort of people,
+you two, didn't I?"
+
+By way of reply he handed the little neat packets, tied with ribbon.
+
+"Thank you," she said. "You are kind, Marcos. Somehow you never say
+things, but you do them--which is better, is it not?"
+
+"I will get you out of here," he answered, "if you want it."
+
+"How?" she asked, with a startled ring in her voice. "Can you really do
+it? Tell me how."
+
+"No," answered Marcos. "I will not tell you how. Not now. But I can do it
+if you are in real danger of going into religion against your will; if
+there is real necessity."
+
+"How?" she asked again, with a deeper note in her voice.
+
+"I will not tell you," he answered, "until the necessity arises. It is a
+secret, and you might have to tell it... in confession."
+
+"Yes," she admitted. "Perhaps you are right. But you will come again next
+Thursday, Marcos?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "next Thursday." "By the way, I forgot. I wrote you a
+note, in case there should have been no time to speak to you. Where is
+it, in my pocket? No, here, I have it. Do you want it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And Marcos tried to get his hand through the hole in the wall, but he
+failed.
+
+"Aha?" laughed Juanita. "You see I have the advantage of you."
+
+"Yes," he answered gravely. "You have the advantage of me."
+
+And on the other side of the wall, he smiled slowly to himself.
+
+"Go! Go at once," she whispered hurriedly, "Milagros is calling me. There
+is some one coming. I can see through the leaves. It is Sor Teresa. And
+she has some one with her. Oh! it is Senor Mon. He is terrible. He sees
+everything. Go, Marcos!"
+
+And Marcos did not wait. He had the note in his hand--a small screw of
+paper, all wet with the dew on the woodbine. He galloped up the hill,
+close under the wall, and put his willing horse straight at the canal.
+The horse leapt in and struggled, half swimming, across.
+
+To have gone any other way would have been to make himself visible from
+one part or another of the convent grounds, and Evasio Mon was in that
+garden.
+
+Both Sor Teresa and Evasio Mon saw Juanita emerge from the nut trees and
+join her friend, but neither appeared to have noticed anything unusual.
+
+"By the way," said Mon, pleasantly, "I am on foot and can save myself a
+considerable distance by using the door at the foot of the garden."
+
+"That way is unfrequented," answered Sor Teresa. "It is scarcely
+considered desirable at night."
+
+"Oh! no one will touch me--a poor man," said Mon, with his pleasant
+smile. "Have you the key with you?"
+
+Sor Teresa looked on the bunch hanging at her girdle.
+
+"No," she admitted rather reluctantly, "I will send for it."
+
+And she called by gesture one of the nuns who seemed to be looking the
+other way and yet perceived the movement of Sor Teresa's hand.
+
+While the key was being brought, Mon stood looking with his gentle smile
+over the lower wall of the garden, where the pathway cuts across the bare
+fields down towards the river.
+
+"Would it not be wiser to carry that key with you always in case it
+should be wanted, as in the present instance?" he said, smoothly.
+
+"I shall do so in future," replied Sor Teresa, humbly; for the first duty
+of a nun is obedience, and there is no nunnery that is not under the
+immediate and unquestioned control of some man, be he a priest or in some
+privileged cases, the Pontiff himself.
+
+At last a second bunch of keys was placed in Sor Teresa's hands, and she
+examined them carefully.
+
+"I am not quite sure," she said, "which is the right one. It is so seldom
+used."
+
+And she fingered them, one by one.
+
+Mon glanced at her sharply, though his lips still smiled.
+
+"Allow me," he said. "Those keys among which you are looking are the keys
+of cupboards and not of doors. There are only two door keys among them
+all."
+
+He took the keys and led the way towards the door hidden behind the grove
+of nut-trees. The nightingales were singing as he passed beneath the
+boughs, followed by Sor Teresa. Juanita hurrying up towards the house by
+another path, turned and glanced anxiously over her shoulder.
+
+"This, I think, will be the key," said Mon, affably, as he stooped to
+examine the lock. And he was right.
+
+He opened the door, passed out and turned to salute Sor Teresa before he
+closed it gently, in her face.
+
+"Go with God, my sister," he said, bowing with a raised hat and
+ceremonious smile.
+
+He waited until he heard Sor Teresa lock the door from within. Then he
+turned to examine the ground in the little lane that skirts the convent
+wall. But on the sun-baked ground, the neat, light feet of the Moor had
+made no mark. He looked at the wall, but failed to perceive the hole in
+it, for the woodbine and the wild rose tree covered it like a curtain.
+
+Marcos had made a round by the summit of the hill and turning to the
+right rejoined the high road from the Casa Blanca, crossing the canal
+again by that bridge and returning to Saragossa by the broad avenue known
+as the Monte Torrero.
+
+He reined in his horse beneath the lamp that hangs from the trees
+opposite to the gate of the town called the Puerta de Santa Engracia, and
+unfolded the note that
+
+Juanita had written to him. It was scribbled in pencil on a half sheet
+torn from an exercise book.
+
+"Dear Marcos," it said. "Thank you most preposterously for the
+chocolates. The next time please put in some almonds. Milagros so loves
+almonds; and I am very fond of Milagros--Your grateful Juanita."
+
+There was a mistake in the spelling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE ROYAL ADVENTURE
+There are halting-places in the lives of most men when for a period the
+individual desire must give place to some great national need. We each
+live our little story through, but at times we find ourselves dragged
+from the narrow way into the great high road, where the history of the
+world blunders to an end which cannot even yet be dimly discerned.
+
+When Marcos rode into Saragossa after nightfall he found the streets
+filled by groups of anxious men. The nerves of civilisation were at a
+great tension at this time. Sedan was past. Paris was already besieged.
+All the French-speaking people thought that the end of the world must
+needs be at hand. The Pope had been deprived of his temporal power. The
+great foundations of the world seemed to tremble beneath the onward tread
+of inexorable history.
+
+In Spain itself, no man knew what might happen next. There seemed no
+depth to which the land of ancient glory might not be doomed to descend.
+Cuba was in wild revolt. Thousands of lives had been uselessly thrown
+away. Already the pride of the proudest nation since Rome, had been
+humbled by the just interference of the United States. A kingdom without
+a king, Spain had hawked her crown round Europe. For a throne, as for
+humbler posts, it is easy enough to find second-rate men who have no
+special groove, nor any capacity to delve one, but the first-rate men
+are, one discovers, nearly always occupied elsewhere. They are never
+waiting for something to turn up.
+
+Spain, with her three crowns in her hand, had called at every Court in
+Europe. She had thrown two nations into the greatest war of civilised
+ages. She was still looking for a king, still calling hopelessly to the
+second-rate royalties. Leopold of Hohenzollern would have accepted had
+not France arisen to object, only to receive a sound thrashing for her
+pains. Thus, for the second time in the world's history, Spain was the
+means of bringing a French empire to the dust.
+
+Ferdinand of Portugal, a cousin to the Queen of England, himself a
+Coburg, finally declined the honour. And Spain could not wait. There was
+a certain picturesqueness in Prim, the usual ornamental General through
+whose hands Spain has passed and repassed during the last century. He was
+a hard man, and the men of Spain, unlike the French, understand a
+martinet. But Spain could not wait. She must have a king; for the regency
+was wearisome. It was weary of itself, like an old man ready to die.
+There was no money in the public coffers. The Cortes was a house of
+words. Here eloquence reigned supreme; and eloquence never yet made an
+empire.
+
+Half a dozen different parties made speeches at each other, but Spain,
+owing to a blessed immunity from the cheap newspaper, was spared these
+speeches. She was told that Castelar was the eloquent orator of the age.
+
+She looked at Castelar, who was a fat little man with a big moustache and
+a small forehead, and she said: "Let us have a king!"
+
+Prim was better. He was a man at all events, and not a word-spinner. He
+was from Cataluńa, where they make hard men with clear heads. And he knew
+his own mind. And he also said: "Let us have a king."
+
+One cried for Don Carlos, and another for Espartero. Cataluńa said there
+was no living with Andalusia. Aragon wanted her own king and wished
+Valencia would go hang. Navarre was all for Don Carlos.
+
+And when Marcos de Sarrion rode into Saragossa they were calling in the
+streets that only a republic was possible now.
+
+He went home to that grim palace between the Cathedral and the Ebro and
+found his father gone. A brief note told him that Sarrion had gone to
+Madrid where a meeting of notables had been hastily summoned--and that
+he, Marcos, must hurry back to Torre Garda--that the Carlists were up for
+their king.
+
+Marcos returned the same night to Pampeluna, and the next day rode to
+Torre Garda by the high road that winds up the valley of the Wolf. In his
+own small kingdom be soon made his iron hand felt. And these people who
+would pay no taxes to king or regent remained quiet amid the anarchy that
+reigned all over Spain.
+
+Thus a week passed and rumours of strange doings at Madrid reached the
+quiet valley. All over the country, bands of malcontents calling
+themselves Carlists had risen in obedience to the voice of Don Carlos'
+grandson, the son of that Don Juan who had renounced a hopeless cause. To
+meet a soldier with his cap worn right side foremost was for the time
+unusual in the cities of the north. For the army no longer knew a master;
+and the Spanish soldier has a naďve and simple way of notifying this
+condition by wearing the peak of his cap behind.
+
+Marcos heard nothing of his father at Madrid, but surmised that there the
+talkers still held sway. The postal service of Spain is still almost
+medićval. In the principal cities the post-offices are to-day only
+opened for business during two hours of the twenty-four. In the year of
+the Franco-Prussian war there was no postal service at all to the
+disaffected parts of the northern provinces.
+
+At the end of a week, Marcos rose at three o'clock and rode sixty miles
+before sunset to keep his word with Juanita. He did not trust the
+railway, which indeed was in constant danger of being cut by Carlist or
+Royalist, but performed the distance by road where he met many friends
+from Navarre and one or two from the valley of the Wolf. A thousand
+reports, a hundred rumours and lies innumerable, were on the roads also,
+traveling hither and thither over Spain. And Marshall Prim seemed to be
+the favoured god of the moment.
+
+Marcos was at his post outside the convent school wall at seven o'clock.
+He heard the clock of San Fernando strike eight. In these Southern
+latitudes the evenings are not much longer in summer than in winter. It
+was quite dark by eight o'clock when Marcos rode away. He was not given
+to a display of emotion. He was an eminently practical man. Juanita would
+have come if she could, he reflected. Why could she not keep her
+appointment?
+
+He rode to the main gate and asked if he could see Sor Teresa--known in
+the world as Dolores Sarrion--for the monastic life was forbidden by law
+at this time in Spain, and this was no nunnery; though, as in all such
+places, certain mediaeval follies were carefully fostered.
+
+"Sor Teresa is not here," was the reply through the grating.
+
+"Then where is she?"
+
+But there was no reply to this plain question.
+
+"Has she gone to Pampeluna?"
+
+The little shutter behind the grating was softly closed. And Marcos
+turned his horse's head with a quiet smile. His face, beneath the shadow
+of his wide hat, was still and hard. He had ridden sixty miles since
+morning, but he sat upright in his saddle. This was a man, as Juanita had
+observed, not to say things, but to do them.
+
+It was not difficult for him to find out during the next few weeks that
+Juanita had been sent to Pampeluna, whither also Sor Teresa had been
+commanded to go. Saragossa has a playful way of sacking religious houses,
+which the older-world city of Navarre would never permit. In Pampeluna
+the religious habit is still respected, and a friar may carry his shaven
+head high in the windy streets.
+
+Pampeluna, it was known, might at any moment be in danger of attack, but
+not of bombardment by the Carlists, who had many friends within the
+walls. Juanita was as safe perhaps in Pampeluna as anywhere in Northern
+Spain. So Marcos went back to Torre Garda and held his valley in a quiet
+grip. The harvests were gathered in, and starvation during the coming
+winter was, at all events, avoided.
+
+The first snow came and still Marcos had no news of Juanita. He knew,
+however, that both she and Sor Teresa were still at Pampeluna in the
+great yellow house in the Calle de la Dormitaleria, nearly opposite the
+Cathedral gate, from whence there is constant noiseless traffic of
+sisters and novices hurrying across, with lowered eyes, to the sanctuary,
+or back to their duties, with the hush of prayer still upon them.
+
+In November Marcos received a letter from his father, sent by hand all
+the way from the capital. Prim had re-established order, he wrote. There
+was hope of a settlement of political differences. A king had been found,
+and if he accepted the crown all might yet go well with Spain.
+
+A week later came the news that Amedeo of Savoy, the younger son of that
+brave old Victor Emmanuel, who faced the curse of a pope, had been
+declared King of Spain.
+
+Amedeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, was not a second-rate man. He was brave,
+honest, and a gentleman--qualities to which the throne of Spain had been
+stranger while the Bourbons sat there.
+
+Sarrion summoned Marcos to Madrid to meet the new king. The wise men of
+all parties knew that this was the best solution of the hopeless
+difficulties into which Spain had been thrust by the Bourbons and the
+tonguesters. A few honest politicians here and there set aside their own
+interests in the interest of the country, which action is worth
+recording--for its rarity. But the country in general was gloomy and
+indifferent. Spain is slow to learn, while France is too quick; and her
+knowledge is always superficial.
+
+"Give us at all events a Spaniard," muttered those who had cried "Down
+with liberty," when that arch-scoundrel, Fernando the Desired, returned
+to his own.
+
+"Give us money and we will give you Don Carlos," returned the cassocked
+canvassers of that monarch in a whisper.
+
+It was evening when Marcos arrived at Madrid, and the station, like all
+the trains, was crowded. All who could were traveling to Madrid to meet
+the king--for one reason or another.
+
+Marcos was surprised to see his father on the platform among those
+waiting for the train from the capitals of the North.
+
+"Come," said Sarrion, "let us go out by the side door; I have the
+carriage there, the streets are impassable. No one knows where to turn.
+There is no head in Spain now; they assassinated him last night."
+
+"Whom?" asked Marcos.
+
+"Prim. They shot him in his carriage, like a dog in a kennel--five of
+them--with guns. One has no pride in being a Spaniard now."
+
+Marcos followed his father through the crowd without replying.
+
+There seemed nothing, indeed, to be said; nothing to be added to the
+simple observation that it was a humiliation for a man to have to admit
+in these days that he was a Spaniard.
+
+"He was a Catalonian to the last," said Sarrion, when they were seated in
+their carnage. "He walked dying up his own stairs, so that his wife might
+be spared the sight of seeing him carried in. Stubborn and brave! One of
+the best men we have seen."
+
+"And the king?"
+
+"The king lands at Carthagena to-day--lands with his life in his hand. He
+carries it in his hand wherever he goes, day and night, in Spain, he and
+his wife. Without Prim he cannot hope to stand. But he will try. We must
+do what we can."
+
+The carriage was making its careful way across the Puerta del Sol, which
+had been cleared by grape-shot more than once in Sarrion's recollection.
+It looked now as if only artillery could set order there.
+
+"Viva el Rey! viva Don Carlos!" a loafer shouted, and waved his hat in
+Sarrion's grim and smiling face.
+
+"I do not understand," he said to Marcos, as they passed on, "why the
+good God gives the Bourbons so many chances."
+
+"I cannot understand why the Bourbons never take them," answered Marcos.
+For he was not a pushing man, but one of those patient waiters on
+opportunity who appear at length quietly at the top, and look down with
+thoughtful eyes at those who struggle below. The sweat and strife of some
+careers must tarnish the brightest lustre.
+
+Father and son drove together to the apartment in a street high above the
+town, near the church of San José where the Sarrions lived when in
+Madrid, and there Sarrion gave Marcos further details of that strange
+adventure which Amedeo of Spain was about to begin.
+
+In return Marcos vouchsafed a brief account of affairs in the valley of
+the Wolf. He never had much to say and even in these stirring times told
+of a fine harvest; of that brilliant weather which marked the year of the
+Napoleonic downfall.
+
+"And Juanita?" inquired Sarrion at length.
+
+"Is at Pampeluna. They cannot get her away from there without my knowing
+it. She is well ... and happy."
+
+"You have not written to her?"
+
+"No," answered Marcos.
+
+"We must remember," said Sarrion, with a nod of approval, "that we are
+dealing with the cleverest men in the world, and the greediest----"
+
+"And the hardest pressed," added Marcos.
+
+"But you have not written to her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor heard from her?"
+
+"I had a note from her at Saragossa, before they moved her to Pampeluna,"
+answered Marcos with a smile. "It was rather badly spelt."
+
+"And...?" asked Sarrion.
+
+Marcos did not reply to this comprehensive interrogation.
+
+"You have come to some decision?" Sarrion suggested.
+
+"I have come to the usual decision that you are quite right in your
+suspicions. They want that money, and they intend to get it by forcing
+her into religion and inducing her to sign the usual testament made by
+nuns, conferring all their earthly goods upon the order into which they
+are admitted."
+
+Then Sarrion went back to his original question.
+
+"And...?"
+
+"As soon as we see signs of their being likely to succeed I propose to
+see Juanita again."
+
+"You can do it despite them?"
+
+"Yes, I can do it."
+
+"And...?"
+
+"I shall explain the position to her--that her bad fortune has given her
+choice of two evils."
+
+"That is one way of putting it."
+
+"It is the only honest way."
+
+Sarrion shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"My friend," he said, "I do not think that love and honesty are much in
+sympathy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN A STRONG CITY
+Amedeo, as the world knows, landed at Carthagena to be met by the news
+that Prim was dead. The man who had summoned him hither to assume the
+crown, he who alone in all Spain had the power and the will to maintain
+order in the riven kingdom, had himself been summoned to appear before a
+higher throne. "There will be no republic in Spain while I live," Prim
+had often said. And Prim was dead.
+
+"Every dog has his day," a deputy sneeringly observed to the Marshall
+himself a few hours before he was shot, in response to Prim's
+plain-spoken intention of striking with a heavy hand all those who should
+manifest opposition to the Duke of Aosta.
+
+So Amedeo of Spain rode into his capital one snowy day in January, 1871,
+carrying high his head and looking down with courageous, intelligent eyes
+upon the faces of the people who refused to cheer him, as upon a sea of
+hidden rocks through which he must needs steer his hazardous way without
+a pilot.
+
+Before receiving the living he visited the dead man who may be assumed to
+have been honest in his intention, as he undoubtedly proved himself to be
+brave in action; the best man that Spain produced in her time of trouble.
+
+Among the first to bow before the King were the two Sarrions, and as they
+returned into an anteroom they came face to face with Evasio Mon, waiting
+his turn there.
+
+"Ah!" said Sarrion, who did not seem to see the hand that Mon had half
+extended, "I did not know that you were a courtier."
+
+"I am not," replied Mon; "but I am here to see whether I am too old to
+learn."
+
+He turned towards Marcos with his pleasant smile, but did not attempt the
+extended hand here.
+
+"I shall take a lesson from Marcos," he said.
+
+Marcos made no reply, but passed on. And Mon, turning on his heel, looked
+after him with a sudden misgiving, like one who hears the sound of a
+distant drum.
+
+"Judging from the persons in his immediate vicinity, our friend has money
+in his pocket," said Sarrion, as they descended those palace stairs which
+had streamed with blood a few years earlier.
+
+"Or promises in his mouth. Was that General Pacheco who turned away as we
+came?"
+
+"Yes," answered Sarrion. "Why do you ask?"
+
+"I have heard that he is to receive a command in the army of the North."
+
+Sarrion made a grimace, uncomplimentary to that very smart soldier
+General Pacheco, and at the foot of the stairs he stopped to speak to a
+friend. He spoke in French and named the man by his baptismal name; for
+this was a Frenchman, named Deulin, a person of mystery, supposed to be
+in the diplomatic service in some indefinite position. With him was an
+Englishman, who greeted Marcos as a friend.
+
+"What do you make of all this?" asked Sarrion, addressing himself to the
+Englishman, who, however, rather cleverly passed the question on to the
+older man with a slow, British gesture.
+
+"I make of it--that they only want a little money to make Don Carlos
+king," said Deulin.
+
+"What is Evasio Mon doing in Madrid?" asked Sarrion.
+
+"Raising the money, or spending it," replied the Frenchman, with a shrug
+of the shoulders, as if it were no business of his.
+
+They passed up-stairs together, but had not gone far when Marcos said the
+Englishman's name without raising his voice.
+
+"Cartoner."
+
+He turned, and Marcos ran up three steps to meet him.
+
+"Who is the prelate with the face of a fox-terrier?" he asked.
+
+"He represents the Vatican. Is he with Mon?"
+
+Marcos nodded an affirmative, and, turning, descended the stairs.
+
+"I had better get back to Pampeluna," he said to his father.
+
+The train for the Northern frontier leaves Madrid in the evening, and at
+this time no man knew who might be the next to take a ticket for France.
+The Sarrions made their preparations to depart the same evening, and,
+arriving early, secured a compartment to themselves. Marcos, however, did
+not take his seat, but stood on the platform looking towards the gate
+through which the passengers must come.
+
+"Are you looking for some one?" asked Sarrion.
+
+"General Pacheco," was the reply; and then, after a pause, "Here he
+comes. He is attended by three aides-de-camp and a squadron of orderlies.
+He carries his head very high."
+
+"But his feet are on the ground," commented Sarrion, who was rolling
+himself a cigarette. "Shall we invite him to come with us?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+General Pacheco was one of those soldiers of the fifties who owed their
+success to a handsome face. He wore a huge moustache, curling to his
+eyes, and had the air of an invincible conqueror--of hearts. He had
+dined. He was going to take up his new command in the North. He walked,
+as the French say, on air, and he certainly swaggered in his gait on that
+thin base. He was hardly surprised to see the Count Sarrion, one of the
+exclusives who had never accepted Queen Isabella's new military
+aristocracy, with his hat in one hand and the other extended towards him,
+on the platform awaiting his arrival.
+
+"You will travel with us," said Sarrion. And the General accepted,
+looking round to see that his attendants were duly impressed.
+
+"I find," he said, seating himself and accepting a cigarette from
+Sarrion, "that each new success in life brings me new friends."
+
+"Making it necessary to abandon the old ones," suggested Sarrion.
+
+"No, no," laughed the General, with a cackle, and a patronising hand
+upheld against the mere thought. "One only adds to the number as one goes
+on; just as one adds to a little purse against the change of fortune,
+eh?"
+
+And he looked from one to the other still, brown face with a cunning
+twinkle. Sarrion was a man of the world. He knew that this expansiveness
+would not last. It would probably give way to melancholy or somnolence in
+the course of half an hour. These things are a matter of the digestion.
+And many vows of friendship are made by perfectly sober persons who have
+dined, with a sincerity which passes off next morning. The milk of human
+kindness should be allowed to stand overnight in order to prove its
+quality.
+
+"Ah," said Sarrion, "you speak from a happy experience."
+
+"No, no," protested the other, gravely. "It is a small thing--a mere
+bagatelle in the French Rentes--but one sees one's opportunities, one
+sees one's opportunities."
+
+He made a gesture with the two fingers that held his cigarette, which
+seemed to be a warning to the Sarrions not to make any mistake as to the
+shrewdness of him who spoke to them.
+
+"Speak for yourself," said Sarrion, with a laugh.
+
+"I do," insisted the other, leaning forward. "I speak essentially for
+myself. One does not mind admitting it to a man like yourself. All the
+world knows that you are a Carlist at heart."
+
+"Does it?"
+
+"Yes--and you must take comfort. I think you are on the right road now."
+
+"I hope we are."
+
+"I am sure of it. Money. That is the only way. To go to the right people
+with money in both hands."
+
+He sat back and looked at the Sarrions with his little, cunning eyes
+twinkling beneath his gold laced cap. The expansiveness would not last
+much longer. Sarrion's dark glance was diagnosing the man with a deadly
+skill.
+
+"The thing," he said slowly, "is to strike while the iron is hot."
+
+He spoke in the symbolic way of a people much given to proverbial wisdom
+and the dark uses of allegory. He might have meant much or nothing. As it
+happened, the Count de Sarrion meant nothing; for he knew nothing.
+
+"That is what I say. Give me a couple of months, I want no more."
+
+"No?" said Sarrion, looking at him with much admiration. "Is that so?"
+
+"Two months--and the sum of money I named."
+
+"Ah! In two months," reflected Sarrion. "Rome, you know, was not built in
+a day."
+
+The General gave his cackling laugh.
+
+"Aha! " he cried, "I see that you know all about it. You gave me my
+cue--the word Rome, eh? To see how much I know!"
+
+And the great soldier-statesman leant back in his seat again, well
+pleased with himself.
+
+"I understand," he said, "that it amounts to this; the sanction of the
+Vatican is required to the remittance of the usual novitiate in the case
+of a young person who is in a great hurry to take the veil; once that is
+obtained the money is set at liberty and all goes merrily. There is
+enough to--well, let us say--to convince my whole army corps, and my
+humble self. And the Vatican will, of course, consent. I fancy that is
+how it stands."
+
+He tapped his pocket as if the golden "piecčs de conviction" were
+already there, and closed his eye like any common person; like, for
+instance, his own father, who was an Andalusian innkeeper.
+
+"I fancy that is how it is," said Sarrion, turning gravely to Marcos. "Is
+it not so?"
+
+"That is how it is," replied Marcos.
+
+The effect of the good dinner was already wearing off. The train had
+started, and General Pacheco found himself disinclined for further
+conversation. He begged leave to ease some of the tighter straps and
+hooks of his smart tunic, opening the collar of solid gold lace that
+encircled his thick neck. In a few minutes he was asleep beneath the
+speculative eye of Marcos, who sat in the far corner of the carriage.
+
+The General was going to Saragossa, so they parted from him in the cold,
+early morning at Castčjon, where an icy wind swept over the plain, and
+the snow lay thick on the ground.
+
+"It will be cold at Pampeluna!" muttered the General from within the hood
+of his military cloak. "I pity you! yes, good-bye; close the door."
+
+The station was full of soldiers, and their high peaked caps were at
+every window of the trains. It was barely yet daylight when the Sarrions
+alighted at the fortified station in the plain below Pampeluna.
+
+The city stands upon a hill which falls steeply on the northeast side to
+the bed of the river Arga, a green-coloured stream deep enough to give
+additional strength to the walls which tower above like a cliff.
+Pampeluna is rightly reckoned to be the strongest city in Europe. It is
+approached from the southwest by a table-land, across which run the high
+roads from Madrid and the French frontier.
+
+The station lies in the plain across which the railway meanders like a
+stream. Both bridges across the Arga are commanded, as is the railway
+station, by the guns of the city. Every approach is covered by artillery.
+
+The sun was rising as the Sarrions' carriage slowly climbed the incline
+and clanked across the double drawbridges into the city. In the Plaza de
+la Constitucion, the centre of the town, troops of hopeful dogs followed
+each other from dust heap to dust heap, but seemed to find little of
+succulence, whilst what they did find appeared to bring on a sudden and
+violent indisposition. Perro gazed at them sadly from the carriage window
+remembering perhaps his own dust heap days.
+
+The Sarrions had no house in Pampeluna. Unlike the majority of the
+Navarrese nobles they lived in their country house which was only twenty
+miles away. They made use of the hotel in the corner of the Plaza de la
+Constitucion when business or war happened to call them to Pampeluna.
+
+They went there now and took their morning coffee.
+
+"Two months," said Sarrion, warming himself at the stove in their simply
+furnished sitting-room. "Two months, they have given that scoundrel
+Pacheco to make his preparations."
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"So that Juanita must make her choice at once."
+
+"They go to vespers in the Cathedral," said Marcos. "It is dusk by that
+time. They cross the Calle de la Dormitaleria and go through the two
+patios into the cloisters and enter the Cathedral by the cloister door.
+If Juanita could forget something and go back for it, I could see her for
+a few minutes in the cloisters which are always deserted in winter."
+
+"Yes," said Sarrion, "but how?"
+
+"Sor Teresa must do it," said Marcos. "You must see her. They cannot
+prevent you from seeing your own sister."
+
+"But will she do it?"
+
+"Yes," answered Marcos without any hesitation at all.
+
+"I shall try to see Juanita also," said Sarrion, throwing his cloak round
+his shoulders twice so that its bright lining was seen at the back,
+hanging from the left shoulder. "You stay here."
+
+He went out into the cold air. Pampeluna lies fourteen hundred feet above
+the sea-level, and is subject to great falls of snow in its brief winter
+season.
+
+Sarrion walked to the Calle de la Dormitaleria, a little street running
+parallel with the city walls, eastward from the Cathedral gates. There
+he learnt that Sor Teresa was out. The lay-sister feared that he could
+not see Juanita de Mogente. She was in class: it was against the rules.
+Sarrion insisted. The lay-sister went to make inquiries. It was not in
+her province. But she knew the rules. She did not return and in her
+place came Father Muro, the spiritual adviser of the school; Juanita's
+own confessor. He was a stout man whose face would have been pleasant
+had it followed the lines that Nature had laid down. But there was
+something amiss with Father Muro--the usual lack of naturalness in those
+who lead a life that is against Nature.
+
+Father Muro was afraid that Sarrion could not see Juanita. It was not
+within his province, but he knew that it was against the rules. Then he
+remembered that he had seen a letter addressed to the Count de Sarrion.
+It was lying on the table at the refectory door, where letters intended
+for the post were usually placed. It was doubtless from Juanita. He would
+fetch it.
+
+Sarrion took the letter and read it, with a pleasant smile on his face,
+while Father Muro watched him with those eyes that seemed to want
+something they could not have.
+
+"Yes," said the Count at length, "it is from Juanita de Mogente."
+
+He folded the paper and placed it in his pocket.
+
+"Did you know the contents of this letter, my father?" he asked.
+
+"No, my son. Why should I?"
+
+"Why, indeed?"
+
+And Sarrion passed out, while Father Muro held the door open rather
+obsequiously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE GRIP OF THE VELVET GLOVE
+On returning to the hotel in the corner of the Plaza de la Constitution,
+Sarrion threw down on the table before Marcos the note that Father Muro
+had given him. He made no comment.
+
+"My dear uncle," the letter ran, "I am writing to advise you of my
+decision to go into religion. I am prompted to communicate this to you
+without delay by the remembrance of your many kindnesses to me. You will,
+I know, agree with me that this step can only be for my happiness in this
+world and the next. Your grateful niece.--JUANITA DE MOGENTE."
+
+Marcos read the letter carefully, and then seeking in his pocket,
+produced the note that Juanita had passed to him through the hole in the
+wall of the convent school at Saragossa. It seemed that he carried with
+him always the scrap of paper that she had hidden within her dress until
+the moment that she gave it to him.
+
+He laid the two letters side by side and compared them.
+
+"The writing is the writing of Juanita," he said; "but the words are not.
+They are spelt correctly!"
+
+He folded the letters again, with his determined smile, and placed them
+in his pocket. Sarrion, smoking a cigarette by the stove, glanced at his
+son and knew that Juanita's fate was fixed. For good or ill, for
+happiness or misery, she was destined to marry Marcos de Sarrion if the
+whole church of Rome should rise up and curse his soul and hers for the
+deed.
+
+Sarrion appeared to have no suggestions to make. He continued to smoke
+reflectively while he warmed himself at the stove. He was wise enough to
+perceive that his must now be the secondary part. To possess power and to
+resist the temptation to use it, is the task of kings. To quietly
+relinquish the tiller of a younger life is a lesson that gray hairs have
+to learn.
+
+"I think," said Marcos at length, "that we must see Leon. He is her
+guardian. We will give him a last chance."
+
+"Will you warn him?" inquired Sarrion.
+
+"Yes," replied Marcos, rising. "He may be here in Pampeluna. I think it
+likely that he is. They are hard pressed. If they get the dispensation
+from Rome they will hurry events. They will try to rush Juanita into
+religion at once. And Leon's presence is indispensable. They are probably
+ready and only awaiting the permission of the Vatican. They are all here
+in Pampeluna, which is better than Saragossa for such work--better than
+any city in Spain. They probably have Leon waiting here to give his
+formal consent when required."
+
+"Then let us go and find out," said Sarrion.
+
+The Plaza de la Constitucion is the centre of the town, and beneath its
+colonnade are the offices of the countless diligences that connect the
+smaller towns of Navarre with the capital, which continued to run even in
+time of war to such places as Irun, Jaca, and even Estella, where the
+Carlist cause is openly espoused. Marcos made the round of the diligence
+offices. He had, it seemed, a hundred friends among the thick-set
+muleteers in breeches, stockings, and spotless shirt, who looked at him
+with keen, dust-laden eyes from beneath the shade of their great berets.
+The drivers of the diligences, which were now arriving from the mountain
+villages, paused in their work of unloading their vehicles to give him
+the latest news.
+
+They were soft spoken persons with a repressed manner, which
+characterises both men and women of their ancient race, and they spoke to
+him in Basque. Some freed their hands from the folds of the long blanket,
+which each wore according to his fancy, to shake hands with him; others
+nodded curtly. Men from the valley of Ebro muttered "Buenas"--the curt
+salutation of Aragon the taciturn.
+
+Marcos seemed to know them by their baptismal names. He even knew their
+horses by name also, and asked after each, while Perro, affable alike
+with rich and poor, exchanged the time of day with traveled dogs, all
+lean and dusty from the road, who limped on sore feet and probably told
+him of the snow while they lay in the sun and licked their paws. Like his
+master, he was not proud, but took a wide view of life, so that all
+varieties of it came within his field of vision.
+
+Then master and dog took a walk down the Calle del Pozo Blanco, where the
+saddle and harness-makers congregate; where muleteers must come to buy
+those gay saddle-bags which so soon lose their bright colour in the
+glaring sun; where the guardias civiles step in to buy their paste and
+pipe-clay; where the great man's groom may chat with the teamster from
+the mountain while both are waiting on the saddler's needle.
+
+Finally Marcos passed through the wide Calle de San Ignacio to the
+drawbridges across the double fosse, where the rope-makers are always at
+work, walking backwards with an ever decreasing bundle of hemp at their
+waists and one eye cocked upwards towards the roadway so that they know
+all who come and go better even than the sentry at the gate. For the
+sentries are changed three or four times a day, while the rope-maker goes
+on forever.
+
+Just beyond the second line of fortifications is a halting-place by a low
+wall where the country women (whom one may meet riding in the
+plain--dignified, cloaked and hooded figures, startlingly suggestive of a
+sacred picture) on mule or donkey, stop to descend from their perch
+between the saddle-bags or panniers. It is a sort of al fresco cloakroom
+where these ladies repair the ravages of wind or storm, where they
+assemble in the evening to pack their purchases on their beasts of
+burden, and finally climb to the top of all themselves. For it is not
+etiquette to ride in or out of the gates upon one's wares; and a breach
+of this unwritten law would immediately arouse the suspicion of the
+courteous toll-officer, who fingers delicately with a tobacco-stained
+hand the bundles and baskets submitted to his inspection.
+
+Here also Marcos had friends, and was able to tell the latest news from
+Cuba, where some had husband, son or lover; a so-called volunteer to put
+down the hopeless rebellion, attracted to a miserable death, by the
+forty-pound bounty paid by Government. There were old women who chaffed
+him, and young ones with fine-cut classic features and crinkled hair, who
+lay in wait for a glance from his grave eyes.
+
+"It is a pity there are not more like you, Seńor Conde," said one old
+peasant; "for it is you that keeps the men from fighting among themselves
+and makes them tend the sheep or take in the crops. Carlist or Royalist,
+the land comes before either, say I."
+
+"For it is the land that feeds the children," added another, who carried
+a pair of small espradrillas in her apron pocket.
+
+Marcos went back to his father with such information as he had been able
+to gather.
+
+"Leon is here," he said. "He is in Retreat at the monastery of the
+Redemptionists, which stands half-empty on the road to Villaba. Sor
+Teresa and Juanita are both well and in the school in the Calle de la
+Dormitaleria. Mon has been here for some weeks, but went to Madrid four
+days ago. It is an open secret that Pacheco will go over to the Carlists
+with his whole army corps for cash down--but he will not take a promise.
+The Carlists think that their opportunity has come."
+
+"And so do I," said Sarrion. "The Duke of Aosta is the son of Victor
+Emmanuel, we must remember that. And no son of the man who overthrew the
+Pope can hope to be tolerated by the clerical party here. The new king
+will be assassinated, Marcos. I give him six months."
+
+"Will you come this afternoon to the old monastery on the Villaba road
+and see Leon?" asked Marcos.
+
+"Oh, yes," laughed his father. "I shall enjoy it." It was the hour of the
+siesta when they quitted the town on horseback by the Puerta de Rochapea
+which gives exit to the city on the northern side. It had been sunny
+since morning, and the snow had melted from the roads, but the hills
+across the plain were still white and great drifts were piled against the
+ramparts, forming a natural buttress from the summit of the steep river
+bank almost to the deep embrasures of the wall.
+
+Marcos turned in his saddle and looked up at these as they rode down the
+slope. Sarrion saw the action and glanced at Marcos and then at the
+towering walls. But he made no comment and asked no questions.
+
+There are two old monasteries on the Villaba road; huge buildings within
+a high wall, each owning a chapel which stands apart from the
+dwelling-house. It is a known fact that the Carlists have never
+threatened these buildings which stand far outside the town. It is also a
+fact that the range of them has been carefully measured by the artillery
+officers, and the great guns on the city walls were at this time trained
+on the isolated buildings to batter them to the ground at the first sign
+of treachery.
+
+
+Marcos pulled the bell-rope swinging in the wind outside the great door
+of the monastery, while Sarrion tied the horses to a post. The door was
+opened by a stout monk whose face fell when he perceived two laymen in
+riding costume. Humbler persons, as a rule, rang this bell.
+
+"The Marquis de Mogente is here?" said Marcos, and the monk spread out
+his hands in a gesture of denial.
+
+"Whoever is here," he said, "is in Retreat. One does not disturb the
+devout."
+
+He made a movement to close the door, but Marcos put his thickly booted
+foot in the interstice. Then he placed his shoulder against the
+weather-worn door and pushed it open, sending the monk staggering back.
+Sarrion followed and was in time to place himself between the monk and
+the bell towards which the devotee was running.
+
+"No, my friend," he said, "we will not ring the bell."
+
+"You have no business here," said the holy man, looking from one to the
+other with sullen eyes.
+
+"So far as that goes, no more have you," said Marcos. "There are no
+monasteries in Spain now. Sit down on that bench and keep quiet."
+
+He turned and glanced at his father.
+
+"Yes," said Sarrion, with his grim smile, "I will watch him."
+
+"Where shall I find Leon de Mogente?" said Marcos to the monk. "I do not
+wish to disturb other persons."
+
+The monk reflected for a moment.
+
+"It is the third door on the right," he said at length, nodding his
+shaven head towards a long passage seen through the open door.
+
+Marcos went in, his spurred heels clanking loudly in the half-empty
+house. He knocked at the door of the third cell on the right; for in his
+way he was a devout person and wished to disturb no man at his prayers.
+The door was opened by Leon himself, who started back when he saw who had
+knocked. Marcos went into the room which was small and bare and
+whitewashed, and closed the door behind him. A few religious emblems were
+on the wall above the narrow bed. A couple of books lay on the table. One
+was open. It was a very old edition of ŕ Kempis. Leon de Mogente's
+religion was of the sort that felt itself able to learn more from an old
+edition than a new one. There are many in these days of cheap imitation
+of the mediaeval who feel the same.
+
+Leon sat down on the plain wooden bench and laid his hand on the open
+book. He looked with weak eyes at Marcos and waited for him to speak.
+Marcos obliged him at once.
+
+"I have come to see you about Juanita," he said. "Have you given your
+consent to her taking the veil?"
+
+Leon reflected. He had the air of a man who having been carefully taught
+a part, loses his place at the first cue.
+
+"What business is it of yours?" he asked, rather hesitatingly at length.
+
+"None."
+
+Leon made a hopeless gesture of the hand and looked at his book with a
+face of distress and embarrassment. Marcos was sorry for him. He was
+strong, and it is the strong who are quickest to detect pathos.
+
+"Will you answer me?" he asked.
+
+And Leon shook his head.
+
+"I have come here to warn you," said Marcos, not unkindly. "I know that
+Juanita has inherited a fortune from her father. I know that the Carlist
+cause is falling for want of money. I know that the Jesuits will get the
+money if they can. Because Don Carlos is their last chance in their last
+stronghold in Europe. They will get Juanita's money if they can--and they
+can only do it by forcing Juanita into religion. And I have come to warn
+you that I shall prevent them."
+
+Leon looked at Marcos and gulped something down in his throat. He was not
+afraid of Marcos, but he was in terror of some one or of something else.
+Marcos studied the white face, the shrinking, hunted eyes, with the quiet
+persistence learnt from watching Nature.
+
+"Are you a Jesuit?" he asked bluntly.
+
+But Leon only drew in a gasping breath and made no answer.
+
+Then Marcos went out and closed the door behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+IN THE CLOISTER
+Marcos and Sarrion went back to Pampeluna in the dusk of the winter
+evening, each meditating over that which they had seen and heard. Leon
+had become a Jesuit. And Juanita was worse--infinitely worse than alone
+in the world.
+
+Marcos needed no telling of all that lay behind Leon's scared silence;
+for his father had brought him up in an atmosphere of plain language and
+wide views of mankind. Sarnon himself had seen Navarre ruined, its men
+sacrificed, its women made miserable by a war which had lasted
+intermittently for thirty years. He had seen the simple Basques, who had
+no means of verifying that which their priests told them, fighting
+desperately and continuously for a lie. The Carlist war has always been
+the war of ignorance and deceit against enlightenment and the advance of
+thought. It is needless to say upon which side the cassock has ranged
+itself.
+
+The Basques were promised their liberty; they should be allowed to live
+as they had always lived, practically a republic, if they only succeeded
+in forcing an absolute monarchy on the rest of Spain. The Jesuits made
+this promise. The society found itself in the position that no promise
+must be allowed to stick in the throat.
+
+Sarrion, like all who knew their strange story, was ready enough to
+recognise the fact that the Jesuit body must be divided into two parts of
+head and heart. The heart has done the best work that missionaries have
+yet accomplished. The head has ruined half Europe.
+
+It was the political Jesuit who had earned Sarrion's deadly hatred.
+
+The political Jesuit has, moreover, a record in history which has only in
+part been made manifest.
+
+William the Silent was assassinated by an emissary of the Jesuits.
+Maurice of Orange, his son, almost met the same fate, and the would-be
+murderer confessed. Three Jesuits were hanged for attempting the life of
+Elizabeth, Queen of England; and later, another, Parry, was drawn and
+quartered. Two years later another was executed for participating in an
+attempt on the Queen's life; and at later periods four more met a similar
+just fate. Ravaillac, the assassin of Henry IV of France was a Jesuit.
+
+The Jesuits were concerned in the Gunpowder Plot of England and two of
+the fathers were among the executed.
+
+In Paraguay the Jesuits instigated the natives to rebel against Spain and
+Portugal; and the holy fathers, taking the field in person, proved
+themselves excellent leaders.
+
+Pope Clement XIV was poisoned by the Jesuits. He had signed a Bull to
+suppress the order, which Bull was to "be forever and to all eternity
+valid." The result of it was "acqua tofana of Perugia," a slow and
+torturing poison.
+
+Down to our own times we have had the hand of the Society of Jesus gently
+urging the Fenians. O'Farrell, who in 1868 attempted the life of the Duke
+of Edinburgh in Australia, was a Jesuit sent out to the care of the
+society in Australia.
+
+The great days of Jesuitism are gone but the society still lives. In
+England and in other Protestant countries they continue to exist under
+different names. The "Adorers of Jesus," the Redemptionists, the Brothers
+of the Christian Doctrine, the Brothers of the Congregation of the Holy
+Virgin, the Fathers of the Faith, the Order of St. Vincent de Paul--are
+Jesuits. How far they belong to the heart and not to the head, is a
+detail only known to themselves. Those who have followed the contemporary
+history of France may draw their own conclusions from the trials of the
+case of the Assumptionist Fathers.
+
+"Los mismos perros, con nuevos cuellos"--said Sarrion to any who sought
+to convince him that Spain owed her downfall to other causes, and that
+the Jesuits were no longer what they had been. "The same dogs with new
+collars." And he held that they were not a progressive but a
+retrogressive society; that their statutes still held good.
+
+"It is allowable to take an oath without intending to keep it when one
+has good grounds for so acting."
+
+"In the case of one unjustifiably making an attack on your honour, when
+you cannot otherwise defend yourself than by impeaching the integrity of
+the person insulting you, it is quite allowable to do so."
+
+"In order to cut short calumny most quickly, one may cause the death of
+the calumniator, but as secretly as possible to avoid observation."
+
+"It is absolutely allowable to kill a man whenever the general welfare or
+proper security demands it."
+
+If any man has committed a crime, St. Liguori and other Jesuit writers
+hold that he may swear to a civil authority that he is innocent of it
+provided that he has already confessed it to his spiritual father and
+received absolution. It is, they say, no longer on his conscience.
+
+"Pray," said the founder of the society, "as if everything depended on
+prayer, and act as if everything depended on action."
+
+"Of what are you thinking?" Sarrion asked suddenly, when they had ridden
+almost to the city gates in silence.
+
+"I was wondering what Juanita will say, some day, when she knows and
+understands everything."
+
+"I was not wondering what Juanita will say," confessed Sarrion with a
+laugh, "but what Evasio Mon will do."
+
+For Sarrion persisted in taking an optimistic view of Juanita and that
+which must supervene when she had grown into understanding and knowledge.
+
+Marcos went back to the hotel. He had many arrangements to make. Sarrion
+rode to the large house in the Calle de la Dormitaleria where the school
+of the Sisters of the True Faith is located to this day. In an hour he
+joined Marcos in the little sitting-room looking on to the Plaza de la
+Constitucion.
+
+"All is going well," he said, "I have seen Dolores. They go across to the
+Cathedral for vespers at five o'clock. It will be almost dark. You have
+only to wait in the inner patio, adjoining the cloisters. They pass
+through that way. Juanita will be sent back for something that is
+forgotten. And then is your time. You can have ten minutes. It is not
+long."
+
+"It will do," said Marcos rather gloomily. He was not afraid of the whole
+Society of Jesuits, of the king, nor yet of Don Carlos. But he feared
+Juanita.
+
+"We need not inquire who will send her back. But she will come. She will
+not expect to see you. Remember that and do not frighten her."
+
+So Marcos set out at dusk to await Juanita. The entrance to the two
+patios that give entrance to the Cathedral cloister is immediately
+opposite to the door of the school of the Sisters of the True Faith. A
+lamp swings over the doorway in the Calle de la Dormitaleria. There is no
+lamp in the first patio but another hangs in the vaulted arch leading
+from one patio to the other. In the cloister itself, which is the most
+beautiful in Spain, there are two dim lamps.
+
+Marcos sat down on the wooden bench which runs right round the quadrangle
+of the inner patio. He had not long to wait. The girls passed through
+whispering and laughing among themselves. Two nuns led the way. Sor
+Teresa followed the last two girls, looking straight in front of her
+between the wings of her great cap. One of the last pair was Juanita. She
+walked listlessly, Marcos thought. He rose and went towards the archway
+leading from the inner patio to the cloisters. The moon was rising and
+cast a white light down upon the delicate stone-work of the cloister
+windows.
+
+Almost immediately Juanita came hurrying back and instinctively drew her
+mantilla closer at the sight of his shadowy form. Then she recognised
+him.
+
+"Oh, Marcos," she whispered. "At last. I thought you had forgotten all
+about me."
+
+"Quick," he answered. "This way. We have only ten minutes."
+
+He took her hand and hurried her back into the cloisters. He led her to
+the right, to the corner of the quadrangle farthest removed from the
+Cathedral where by daylight few pass, and at night none.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked, "Only ten minutes."
+
+"It has all been arranged," he answered. "I met you here on purpose. You
+have only ten minutes in which to settle."
+
+"To settle what?" she asked with a laugh.
+
+"Your whole life."
+
+"But one cannot settle one's life in an Ave Maria," she said, which means
+in the twinkling of an eye. And she looked at him by the dim light and
+laughed again. For she was young and they had always made holiday
+together, and laughed.
+
+"Did you mean that letter which you wrote to my father about going into
+religion?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I suppose so. I meant it at the time, Marcos. It seems
+to be the only thing to do. Everything seems to point to it. Every sermon
+I hear. Everything I read. Everything any one ever says to me. But now--"
+she turned and looked at him, "--now that I see you again I cannot think
+how I did it."
+
+"Am I so very worldly?"
+
+"Of course you are. And yet I suppose you have some chance of salvation.
+It seems to me that you have--a little chance, I give you. But it seems
+hard on other people. Oh, Marcos, I hate the idea of it. And yet they are
+so kind to me--all except Sor Teresa. If anybody could make me hate it,
+she would. She is so unkind and gives me all the punishments she can."
+
+Marcos smiled slowly and with great pity, of which men have a better
+understanding than any woman. He thought he knew why Sor Teresa was
+cruel.
+
+"They are all so kind. And I know they are good. And they take it for
+granted that the religious life is the only possible one. One cannot help
+becoming convinced even against one's will."
+
+She turned to him suddenly and laid her two hands on his arm.
+
+"Oh, Marcos," she whispered, with a sort of sob of apprehension. "Can you
+not do something for me?"
+
+"Yes," he answered. "That is why I am here. But it must be done at once."
+
+"Why?" she asked. And she was grave enough now.
+
+"Because they have sent to Rome for a dispensation of your novitiate.
+They wish to hurry you into religion at once."
+
+"Yes," she said. "I know. But why?"
+
+"Because they want your money."
+
+"But I have none, or very little. They have told me so."
+
+"That is a lie," said Marcos, bluntly.
+
+"Oh, but you must not say that," she whispered, with a sort of horror.
+"Father Muro told me so. He represents Heaven on earth. We are told he
+does."
+
+"He does it badly," said Marcos, quietly.
+
+Juanita reflected for a moment. Then suddenly she stamped her foot on the
+pavement worn by the feet of generations of holy men.
+
+"I will not go into religion," she said. "I will not. I always feel that
+there is something wrong in all they say. And with you and Uncle Ramon it
+is different. I know at once that what you say is quite simple and plain
+and honest; that you have no other meaning in what you say but that which
+the words convey. Marcos--you and Uncle Ramon must take me away from
+here. I cannot get away. I am hemmed in on every side."
+
+"We can take you away," answered Marcos slowly, "if you like."
+
+She turned and looked at him, her attention caught by some tense note in
+his voice.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked. "Your face is so odd and white. What do
+you mean, Marcos?"
+
+"We can take you away, but you must marry me."
+
+She gave a short laugh and stopped suddenly.
+
+"Oh--you must not joke," she said. "You must not laugh. It is my whole
+life, remember."
+
+"I am not laughing. It is no joke," said Marcos steadily.
+
+"What...?"
+
+For a moment they sat in silence. The low chanting of vespers came to
+their ears through the curtained doors of the Cathedral.
+
+"Listen to them," said Juanita suddenly. "They are half asleep. They are
+not thinking of what they are singing. They are taking snuff
+surreptitiously behind their hands to keep themselves awake. And it is
+we, poor wretched schoolgirls and nuns who have to keep the saints in a
+good humour by attending to every word and being most preposterously
+devout whether we feel inclined to be or not. No, I will not go into
+religion. That is certain. Marcos, I would rather marry you than that--if
+it is necessary."
+
+"It is necessary."
+
+"But they can have all the money; every real,'" suggested Juanita
+hopefully.
+
+"No; they have tried that way. They cannot do it in these times. The only
+way they can get the money is for you to go of your own free will into
+religion and to bequeath of your own free will all your worldly
+possessions to the Order you join."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Juanita. Her spirits had risen every minute. She was
+gay again now. His presence seemed to restore to her the happy gift of
+touching life lightly which is of the heart. And the heart knows no age,
+neither is it subject to the tyranny of years.
+
+"Well, I will marry you if there is no help for it. But..."
+
+"But..." echoed Marcos.
+
+"But of course it is only a sort of game, is it not?"
+
+"Yes," he answered. "A sort of game."
+
+"Promise?"
+
+"I promise."
+
+They were sitting on the steps of one of the chapels. Juanita swung round
+and peered through the railings as if to see what Saint had his
+habitation there.
+
+"It is only St. Bartholomew," she said, airily. "But he will do. You have
+promised, remember that. And St. Bartholomew has heard you. It is only to
+save me from being a nun that we are being married. And I am to be just
+the same as I am now. We can go fishing, I mean, as we used to, and climb
+the mountains and have jokes just as we always do in the holidays."
+
+"Yes," said Marcos.
+
+She held out her hand as she had seen the peasants in Torre Garda when
+they had struck a bargain and would seal it irrevocably.
+
+"Touch it," she said with a gay laugh, as she had heard them say.
+
+And they shook hands in the dark cloisters.
+
+"There is a window at the end of the passage in which is your room," said
+Marcos. "It looks out on to a small courtyard and is quite near the
+ground. Come to that window to-morrow night at ten o'clock and I shall be
+there."
+
+"What for?" she asked.
+
+"To be married," he answered. "My father and I will arrange it. We shall
+both be there. If you do not come to-morrow night I shall come again the
+next night. You will be back in your room by half-past eleven."
+
+"Married?" asked Juanita.
+
+"Yes."
+
+He had risen and was standing in front of her.
+
+"And now you must go back to the Cathedral."
+
+"But Sor Teresa's breviary?"
+
+"She has it in her pocket," said Marcos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+OUR LADY OF THE SHADOWS
+There were great clouds in the sky when the moon rose the next night and
+one of them threw Pampeluna into dark shadows when Marcos took his place
+in the little passage between the School in the Calle de la Dormitaleria
+and the next building. The window at the end of the passage where Juanita
+and Sor Teresa and some of the more favoured of the girls had their
+rooms, was about six feet above the ground.
+
+Marcos took his post immediately underneath and stretching his arm up
+took hold of one of the two bars, and waited. Juanita looking from the
+door of her room could thus see his clenched hand and must know that he
+was waiting. The clocks of the city struck ten. Immediately afterwards
+the watchmen began their cry. The city was already asleep.
+
+It was very cold. Marcos changed his hand from time to time and breathed
+on his fingers. He carried a cloak for Juanita. The striking of the
+quarter found him still waiting beneath the window. But, soon after,
+Marcos' heart gave a leap to his throat at the touch of cold fingers on
+his wrist. It was Juanita. He threw the cloak down and placing his heel
+on the sill of a lower window near the ground he raised himself to the
+level of the bars.
+
+"Oh, Marcos!" whispered Juanita in his ear, through the open window.
+
+He edged his shoulder in between the two bars which were fixed
+perpendicularly, and being strongly built he only found room to introduce
+his two thumbs within that which pressed against his chest. He slowly
+straightened his arms and the iron gave an audible creak. It was a
+hundred years old, all rust-worn and attenuated.
+
+"There," he said, "you can get through that."
+
+"Yes," she answered. She was shivering and yet half laughing.
+
+"Listen," she whispered, drawing him towards her. "Sor Teresa's door is
+open. You can hear her snoring. Listen!"
+
+She gave a half hysterical laugh.
+
+"Quick," said Marcos--dropping to the ground.
+
+Juanita turned sideways and pushed her head and shoulders through the
+bars. She leant down towards him holding out her arms and her thick plait
+of hair struck him across the eyes. A moment later he had lifted her to
+the ground.
+
+"Quick," he said again, breathlessly. He threw the cloak round her and
+drew the hood forward over her head. Then he took her hand and they ran
+together down the narrow passage into the Calle de la Domitaleria. She
+ran as quickly as he did with her long, schoolgirl legs, unhampered by a
+woman's length of skirt. At the corner Perro, who had been keeping watch
+there, joined them and trotted by their side.
+
+"What cloak is this?" she asked. "It smells of tobacco."
+
+"It is my old military cloak."
+
+"And this is my wedding dress!" she said, with a breathless laugh. "And
+Perro is my bridesmaid."
+
+They turned sharply to the left and in a moment stood on the deserted
+ramparts close under the shadow of the Episcopal Palace. Below them was
+darkness. To the right, beneath them, the white falls of the river
+gleamed dimly above the bridge, and the roar of it came to their ears
+like the roar of the sea.
+
+Far across the plain, the Pyrenees rose, range behind range, a white wall
+in the moonlight. At their feet the walls of the ramparts, bastion below
+bastion, broken and crenelated, a triumph of mediaeval fortification,
+faded into the shadow where the river ran.
+
+"There is a snow-drift in this corner," whispered Marcos. "It is piled up
+against the rampart by the north wind. I will drop you over the wall on
+to it and then follow you. You remember how to hold to my hand?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, very quick and alert. There was good blood in her
+veins, which was astir now, in the presence of danger. "Yes--as we used
+to do it in the mountains--my hand round your wrist and your fingers
+round mine."
+
+They were standing on the wall now. She knelt down and looked over; then
+she turned, still on her knees, and clasped her right hand round his
+wrist while he held hers in his strong grip. She leant forward and
+without hesitation swung out, suspended by one arm, into the darkness. He
+stooped, then knelt, and finally lay face downwards on the wall, lowering
+her all the while.
+
+"Go!" he whispered. And she dropped lightly on to the snow-slope beaten
+by the wind into an icy buttress against the wall. A moment later he
+dropped beside her.
+
+"My father is at the bridge," he said, as they scrambled down to the
+narrow path that runs along the river bank beneath the walls. "He is
+waiting for us there with a carriage and a priest."
+
+Juanita stopped short.
+
+"Oh, I wish I had not come!" she exclaimed.
+
+"You can go back," said Marcos slowly; "it is not too late. You can still
+go back if you want to."
+
+But Juanita only laughed at him.
+
+"And know for the rest of my life that I am a miserable coward. And it is
+of cowards that nuns are made; no, thank you. I will carry it through
+now. Come along. Come and get married."
+
+She gave a laugh as she led the way. When they reached the road they were
+in the full moonlight, and for the first time could see each other.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Juanita suddenly. "Your face looks white;
+there is something I do not understand in it."
+
+"Nothing," answered Marcos. "Nothing. We must be quick."
+
+"You are sure you are keeping nothing back from me?" she asked, glancing
+shrewdly at him as she walked by his side.
+
+"Nothing," he answered, for the first time, and very conscientiously
+telling her an untruth. For he was keeping back the crux of the whole
+affair which he thought she was too young to be told or to understand.
+
+The carriage was waiting on the high road just across the old Roman
+bridge. Sarrion came forward in the moonlight to meet them. Juanita ran
+towards him, kissed him and clung to his arm with a little movement of
+affection.
+
+"I am so glad to see you," she said. "It feels safer. They almost made me
+a nun, you know. And that horrid old Sor Teresa--oh, I beg your pardon! I
+forgot she was your sister."
+
+"She is hardly my sister," answered Sarrion with a cynical laugh. "It is
+against the rules you know to permit oneself any family affection when
+one is in religion."
+
+"You mustn't blame her for that," said Juanita. "One never knows. You
+cannot tell why she went into religion. Perhaps she never meant to. You
+do not understand."
+
+"Oh, yes I do," answered Sarrion bitterly.
+
+They were hurrying towards the carriage and a man waiting at the open
+door took a step forward and raised his hat, showing in the moonlight a
+high bald forehead and a clean shaven face. He was slight and neat.
+
+"This is an old school friend of mine," said Sarrion by way of
+introduction. "He is a bishop," he added.
+
+And Juanita knelt on the road while he laid his hand on her hair with a
+smile half amused and half pathetic. He looked twenty years younger than
+Sarrion, and laying aside his sacerdotal manner as suddenly as he had
+assumed it on Juanita's instinctive initiation, he helped her into the
+carriage with a grave and ceremonious courtesy.
+
+"This is your own carriage," she said when they were all seated.
+
+"Yes--from Torre Garda," answered Sarrion. "And it is Pietro who is
+driving. So you are among friends."
+
+"And dear old Perro running at the side," exclaimed Juanita, jumping up
+and putting her head out of the window to encourage Perro with a
+greeting. Her mantilla flying in the wind blew across the bishop's face
+which that youthful-looking dignitary endured with patience.
+
+"And there is a hot-water tin for our feet. I feel it through my
+slippers; for my feet are wet with the snow. How delightful!"
+
+And Juanita stooped down to warm her hands.
+
+"You have thought of everything--you and Marcos," she said. "You are so
+kind to me. I am sure I am very grateful ... to every one."
+
+She turned towards the bishop, kindly including him in this expression of
+thanks; which she could not do more definitely because she did not know
+his name. It was obvious that she was not a bit afraid of him seeing that
+he had no vestments with him.
+
+"At one time, on the ramparts, I was sorry I had come," she explained in
+a friendly way to him, "but now I am not. Of course it is all very well
+for me. It is great fun. But for you it is different; on such a cold
+night. I do not know why everybody takes so much trouble about me."
+
+"Half of Spain is taking trouble about you, my child," was the answer.
+
+"Ah! that is about my money. That is quite different. But Marcos, you
+know, and Uncle Ramon are the only people who take any trouble about me,
+for myself you understand."
+
+"Yes, I understand," answered the great man humbly, as if he were trying
+to, but was not quite sure of success.
+
+Marcos sat silently in his corner of the carriage. Indeed Juanita
+exercised the prerogative of her sex and led the conversation, gaily and
+easily. But when the carriage stopped beneath some trees by the roadside
+she suddenly lapsed into silence too.
+
+She stood on the road in the bright moonlight and looked about her. She
+had thrown back the hood of Marcos' military cloak and now set her
+mantilla in order. Which was all the preparation this light-hearted bride
+made for the supreme moment. And perhaps she never knew all that she had
+missed.
+
+"I see no church and no houses," said Juanita to Marcos. "Where are we?"
+
+"The chapel is above us in the darkness," replied Marcos. And he led the
+way up a winding path.
+
+The little chapel stood on a sort of table-land looking out over the
+plain that lay to the south of it. In front of it were twelve pines
+planted in a row at irregular intervals. The shadow of each tree in
+succession fell upon a low stone cross set on the ground before the door
+at each successive hour of the twelve; a fantasy of some holy man long
+dead.
+
+The chapel door stood open and just within it a priest in his short white
+surplice awaited their arrival. Juanita recognised the sunburnt old cura
+of Torre Garda.
+
+But he only had time to bow rather formally to her; for a bishop was
+behind.
+
+"I have only lighted one candle," he said to Marcos. "If we make an
+illumination they can see it from Pampeluna."
+
+The bishop followed the old priest into the sacristy where the one candle
+gave a flickering light. There they could be heard whispering together.
+Sarrion, Marcos and Juanita stood near the door. The moonlight gleamed
+through the windows and a certain amount of reflected light found its way
+through the open doorway.
+
+Suddenly Juanita gave a start and clutched at Marcos' arm.
+
+"Look," she said, pointing to the right.
+
+A kneeling figure was there with something that gleamed dully at the
+shoulders.
+
+"Yes," explained Marcos. "It is a friend of mine, an officer of the
+garrison who has ridden over. We require two witnesses, you know."
+
+"He is saying his own prayers," said Juanita, looking at him.
+
+"He has not much opportunity," explained Marcos. "He is in command of an
+outpost at the outlet of the valley of the Wolf."
+
+As they looked at him he rose and came towards them, his spurs clanking
+and his great sword swinging against the prie-dieu chairs of the devout.
+He bowed formally to Juanita, and stood, upright and stiff, looking at
+Marcos.
+
+The old cura came from the sacristy and lighted two candles on the altar.
+Then he turned with the taper in his hand and beckoned to Marcos and
+Juanita to come forward to the rails where two stools had been placed in
+readiness. The cura went back to the sacristy and returned, followed by
+the bishop in his vestments.
+
+So Juanita de Mogente was married in a little mountain chapel by the
+light of two candles and a waning moon, while Sarrion and the officer in
+his dusty uniform stood like sentinels behind them, and the bishop
+recited the office by heart because he could not see to read. He was a
+political bishop and no great divine, but he knew his business, and got
+through it quickly.
+
+He splashed down his historic name with a great flourish of the quill pen
+in the register and on the certificate which he handed with a bow to
+Juanita.
+
+"What shall I do with it?" she asked.
+
+"Give it to Marcos," was the answer.
+
+And Marcos put the paper in his pocket.
+
+They passed out of the chapel and stood on the little terrace in the
+moonlight amid the shadows of the twelve pine trees while the bishop
+disrobed in the sacristy.
+
+"What are those lights?" asked Juanita, breaking the silence before it
+grew irksome.
+
+"That is Pampeluna," replied Marcos.
+
+"And the light in the mountains?" she asked, pointing to the north.
+
+"That is a Carlist watch-fire, Senorita," answered the officer briskly,
+and no one seemed to notice his slip of the tongue except Sarrion, who
+glanced at him and then decided not to remind him that the title no
+longer applied to Juanita.
+
+In a few moments the bishop joined them, and they all made their way down
+the winding path. The bishop and Sarrion were to go by the midnight train
+to Saragossa, while the carnage and horses were housed for the night at
+the inn near the station, a mile from the gates; for this was a time of
+war, and Pampeluna was a fenced city from nightfall till morning.
+
+Marcos and Juanita reached the Calle de la Dormitaleria in safety,
+however, and Juanita gave a little sigh of fatigue as they hurried down
+the narrow alley.
+
+"To-morrow," she said, "I shall think this has all been a dream."
+
+"So shall I," said Marcos gravely.
+
+He lifted her into the window, and she stood listening for a moment while
+she took from her finger the wedding ring she had worn for half an hour
+and gave it back to him.
+
+"It is of no use to me," she said; "I cannot wear it at school."
+
+She laughed, and held up one finger to command his attention.
+
+"Listen!" she whispered. "Sor Teresa is still snoring."
+
+She watched him bend the bars back again to their proper place.
+
+"By the way," she asked him. "What was the name of the chapel where we
+were married--I should like to know?"
+
+Marcos hesitated a moment before replying.
+
+"It is called Our Lady of the Shadows."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE MATTRESS BEATER
+Englishmen are justly proud of their birthright. The less they travel,
+moreover, the prouder they are, and the stronger is their conviction that
+England leads the world in thought and art and action.
+
+They are quite unaware, for instance, that no country in the world is
+behind England (unless it be Scotland) in a small matter that affects
+very materially one-third of a human span of life, namely beds. In any
+town of France, Germany or Holland, the curious need not seek long for
+the mattress-maker. He is usually to be found in some open space at the
+corner of a market-place or beneath an arcade near the Maine exercising
+his health-giving trade in the open air. He lives, and lives bountifully,
+by unmaking, picking over and re-making the mattresses of the people.
+Good housewives, moreover, stand near him with their knitting to see that
+he does it well and puts back within the cover all the wool that he took
+out. In these backward countries the domestic mattress is remade once a
+year if not oftener. In our great land there is a considerable vagueness
+as to the period allowed to a mattress to form itself into lumps and to
+accumulate dust or germs. Moreover, there are thousands of exemplary
+housekeepers who throw up the eye of horror to their whitewashed ceiling
+at the thought of a foreign person's personal habits, who do not know
+what is inside their mattress and never think of looking to see from
+year's end to year's end.
+
+In Spain, a country rarely visited by those persons who pride themselves
+upon being particular, the mattress-maker is a much more necessary factor
+in domestic life than is the sweep or the plumber in northern lands. No
+palace is too royal for him, no cottage is too humble to employ him.
+
+He is, moreover, the only man allowed inside a nunnery. Which is the
+reason why he finds himself brought into prominence now. He is usually a
+thin, lithe man, somewhat of the figure of those northerners who supply
+the bull-ring with Banderilléros. He arrives in the early morning with a
+sheathe knife at his waist, a packet of cigarettes in his jacket pocket
+and two light sticks under his arm. All he asks is a courtyard and the
+sunshine that Heaven gives him.
+
+In a moment he deftly cuts the stitches of the mattress and lays bare the
+wool which he never touches with his fingers. The longer stick in his
+right hand describes great circles in the air and descends with the
+whistle of a sword upon the wool of which it picks up a small handful.
+Then the shorter stick comes into play, picks the wool from the longer,
+throws it into the air, beats it this way and that, tosses it and catches
+it until every fibre is clear, when the fluffy mass is deftly cast aside.
+All the while, through the beating of the wool, the two sticks beaten
+against each other play a distinct air, and each mattress-maker has his
+own, handed down from his forefathers, ending with a whole chromatic
+scale as the shorter stick swoops up the length of the longer to sweep
+away the lingering wool. Thus the whole mattress is transferred from a
+sodden heap to a high and fluffy mountain of carded wool, all baked by
+the heat of the sun.
+
+The man has a hundred attitudes, full of grace. He works with a skill
+which is a conscious pleasure; a pleasure unknown to those who have never
+had opportunity of acquiring a manual craft or appreciating the wondrous
+power that God has put into human limbs. He has complete control over his
+two thin sticks, can pick up with them a single strand of wool, or half a
+mattress. He can throw aside a pin that lurks in a ball of wool, or kill
+a fly that settles on his work, without staining the snowy mass. And all
+the while, from the moment that the mattress is open till the heap is
+complete, the two sticks never cease playing their thin and woody air so
+that any within hearing may know that the "colchonero" is at work.
+
+When the mattress case is empty he pauses to wipe his brow (for he must
+needs work in the sun) and smoke a cigarette in the shade. It is then
+that he gossips.
+
+In a Southern land such a worker as this must always have an audience,
+and the children hail with delight the coming of the mattress-maker. At
+the Convent School of the Sisters of the True Faith his services were
+required once a fortnight; for there were many beds; but his coming was
+none the less exciting for its frequency. He was the only man allowed
+inside the door. Father Muro was, it seemed, not counted as a man. And in
+truth a priest is often found to possess many qualities which are
+essentially small and feminine.
+
+The mattress-maker of Pampeluna was a thin man with a ropy neck, and keen
+black eyes that flashed hither and thither through the mist of wool and
+dust in which he worked. He was considered so essentially a domestic and
+harmless person that he was permitted to go where he listed in the house
+and high-walled garden. For nuns have a profound distrust of man as a
+mass and a confiding faith in the few individuals with whom they have to
+deal.
+
+The girls were allowed to watch the colchonero at his work, more
+especially the elder girls such as Juanita de Mogente and her friend
+Milagros of the red-gold hair. Juanita watched him so closely one spring
+afternoon that the keen black eyes kept returning to her face at each
+round of the long whistling stick. The other girls grew tired of the
+sight and moved away to another part of the garden where the sun was
+warmer and the violets already in bloom; but Juanita lingered.
+
+She did not know that this was one of Marcos' friends--that in the summer
+this colchonero took the road with his packet of cigarettes and two
+sticks and wandered from village to village in the mountains beating the
+mattresses of the people and seeing the wondrous works of God as these
+are only seen by such as live all day and sleep all night beneath the
+open sky.
+
+Quite suddenly the polished sticks ceased playing loudly and dropped
+their tone to pianissimo, so that if Juanita were to speak she could be
+heard.
+
+"Hombre," she said, "do you know Marcos de Sarrion?"
+
+"I know the chapel of Our Lady of the Shadows," he answered, glancing at
+her through a mist of wool.
+
+"Will you give him a letter?"
+
+"Fold it small and throw it in the wool," he said, and immediately the
+sticks beat loudly again.
+
+Juanita's hand was already in her pocket seeking her purse.
+
+"No, no," he said; "I am too much caballero to take money from a lady."
+
+She walked away, dropping as she passed the uncarded heap, a folded paper
+which was lost amid the fluff. The sticks flew this way and that, and the
+twisted note shot up into the air with a bunch of wool which fell across
+the two sticks and was presently cast aside upon the carded heap. And
+peeping eyes from the barred windows of the convent school saw nothing.
+
+Marcos and his father had returned to Saragossa. They were people of
+influence in that city, and Saragossa, strange to say, had a desire to
+maintain law and order within its walls. It was unlike Barcelona, which
+is at all times republican and frankly turbulent. Its other neighbour,
+Pampeluna, remains to this day clerical and mysterious. It is the city of
+the lost causes; Carlism and the Church. The Sarrions were not looked
+upon with a kindly eye within the walls of the Northern fortress and it
+is much too small a town for any to pass unobserved in its streets.
+
+There was work to do in Saragossa. In Pampeluna there were only
+suspicions to arouse. Juanita was in Sor Teresa's care and could scarcely
+come to harm, holding in her hand as she did a strong card to be played
+on emergency.
+
+All Spain seemed to be pausing breathlessly. The murder of Prim had
+shaken the land like an earthquake. The king had already made enemies. He
+had no enthusiasm. His new subjects would have preferred a few mistakes
+to this cautious pause. They were a people vaguely craving for liberty
+before they had cast off the habit of servitude.
+
+No Latin race will ever evolve a great republic; for it must be ruled.
+But Spain was already talking of democracy and the new king had scarcely
+seated himself on the throne.
+
+"We can do nothing," said Sarrion, "but try to keep order in our own
+small corner of this bear-garden."
+
+So he remained at Saragossa and threw open his great house there, while
+Marcos passed to and fro into Navarre up the Valley of the Wolf to Torre
+Garda.
+
+Where Evasio Mon might be, no man knew. Paris had fallen. The Commune was
+rife. France was wallowing in the deepest degradation. And in Bayonne the
+Carlist plotters schemed without let or hindrance.
+
+"So long as he is away we need not be uneasy about Juanita," said Marcos.
+"He cannot return to Saragossa without my hearing of it."
+
+And one evening a casual teamster from the North, whose great two-wheeled
+cart, as high as a house and as long as a locomotive, stood in the dusty
+road outside the Posada de los Reyes, dropped in, cigarette in mouth, to
+the Palacio Sarrion. In Spain, a messenger delivers neither message nor
+letter to a servant. A survival of mediaeval habits permits the humblest
+to seek the presence of the great at any time of day.
+
+The Sarrions had just finished dinner and still sat in the vast
+dining-room, the walls of which glittered with arms and loomed darkly
+with great portraits of the Spanish school of painting.
+
+The teamster was not abashed. It was a time of war, and war is a great
+leveler of social scales. He had brought his load through a disturbed
+country. He was a Guipuzcoan--as good as any man.
+
+"It was about the Seńor Mon," he said. "You wished to hear of him. He
+returned to Pampeluna two days ago."
+
+The teamster thanked their Excellencies, but he could not accept their
+hospitality because he had ordered his supper at his hotel. It was only
+at the Posada de los Reyes in all Saragossa that one procured the real
+cuisine of Guipuzcoa. Yes, he would take a glass of wine.
+
+And he took it with a fine wave of the arm, signifying that he drank to
+the health of his host.
+
+"Evasio Mon will not leave us long idle," said Sarrion, when the man had
+gone, and he had hardly spoken when the servant ushered in a second
+visitor, a man also of the road, who handed to Marcos a crumpled and
+dirty envelope. He had nothing to say about it, so bowed and withdrew. He
+was a man of the newer stamp, for he was a railway worker, having that
+which is considered a better manner. He knew his place, and that
+knowledge had affected his manhood.
+
+The letter he gave to Marcos bore no address. It was sealed, however, in
+red wax, which had the impress of Nature's seal, a man's thumb--unique
+and not to be counterfeited.
+
+From the envelope Marcos took a twisted paper, not innocent of carded
+wool.
+
+"We are going back to Saragossa," Juanita wrote. "I have refused to go
+into religion, but they say it is too late; that I cannot draw back now.
+Is this true?"
+
+Marcos passed the note across to his father.
+
+"I wish this was Barcelona," he said, with a sudden gleam in his grave
+eyes.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because then we could pull the school down about their ears and take
+Juanita away."
+
+Sarrion smiled.
+
+"Or get shot mysteriously from a window while attempting it," he said.
+"No, we fight with finer weapons than that. Mon has got his dispensation
+from Rome ... a few hours too late."
+
+He handed back the note, and they sat in silence for a long time in the
+huge, dimly-lighted room. Success in life rests upon one small gift--the
+secret of the entry into another man's mind to discover what is passing
+there. The greatest general the world has known owed his success, by his
+own admission, to his power of guessing correctly what the enemy would do
+next. Many can guess, but few guess right.
+
+"She has not dated her letter," said Sarrion, at length.
+
+"No, but it was written on Thursday. That is the day that the colchonero
+goes to the Calle de la Dormitaleria."
+
+He drew a strand of wool from the envelope and showed it to Sarrion.
+
+"And the day that Mon returned to Pampeluna. He will be prompt to act. He
+always has been. That is what makes him different from other men. Prompt
+and restless."
+
+Sarrion glanced across the table, as he spoke, at the face of his son,
+who was also a prompt man, but withal restful, as if possessing a reserve
+upon which to draw in emergency. For the restless and the uneasy are
+those who have all their forces in the field.
+
+"Do not sit up for me," said Marcos, rising. He stood and thoughtfully
+emptied his glass. "I shall change my clothes," he said, "and go out.
+There will be plenty of Navarrese at the Posada de los Reyes. The night
+diligencias will be in before daylight. If there is any news of
+importance I will wake you when I come in."
+
+It was a dark night, and the wind roared down the bed of the Ebro. For
+the spring was at hand with its wild march "solano" and hard, blue skies.
+There was no moon. But Marcos had good eyes, and those whom he sought
+were men who, after a long siesta, traveled or worked during half the
+night.
+
+The dust was astir on the Paseo del Ebro, where it lies four inches deep
+on the broad space in front of the Posada de los Reyes where the carts
+stand. There were carts here now with dim, old-fashioned lanterns, and
+long teams of mules waiting patiently to be relieved of their massive
+collars.
+
+The first man he met told him that Evasio Mon must have arrived in
+Saragossa at sunset, for he had passed him on the road, going at a good
+pace on horseback.
+
+From another he heard the rumour that the Carlists had torn up the line
+between Pampeluna and Castéjon.
+
+"Go to the station," this informant added. "They will tell you there,
+because you are a rich man. To me they will tell nothing."
+
+At the station he learnt that this rumour was true; and one who was in
+the telegraph service gave him to understand that the Carlists had driven
+the outpost back from the mouth of the Valley of the Wolf, which was now
+cut off.
+
+"He thinks I am at Torre Garda," reflected Marcos, as he returned to the
+city, fighting the wind on the bridge.
+
+Chance favoured him, for a man with tired horses stopped his carriage to
+inquire if that were the Count Marcos de Sarrion. He had brought Juanita
+to Saragossa in his carriage, not with Sor Teresa, but with the Mother
+Superior of the school and two other pupils. He had been dismissed at the
+Plaza de la Constitucion, and the ladies had taken another carriage. He
+had not heard the address given to the driver.
+
+By daylight Marcos returned to the Palacio Sarrion without having
+discovered the driver of the second carriage or the whereabouts of
+Juanita in Saragossa. But he had learnt that a carriage had been ordered
+by telegraph from a station on the Pampeluna line to be at Alagon at four
+o'clock in the morning. He learnt also that telegraphic communication
+between Pampeluna and Saragossa was interrupted.
+
+The Carlists again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+AT THE INN OF THE TWO TREES
+At dawn the next morning, Marcos and Sarrion rode out of the city towards
+Alagón by the great high road many inches deep in dust which has always
+been the main artery of the capital of Aragon.
+
+The pace was leisurely; for the carriage they were going to meet had been
+timed to leave Alagón fifteen miles away at four o'clock. There was but
+one road. They could scarcely miss it.
+
+It was seven o'clock when they halted at a roadside inn. Sarrion quitted
+the saddle and went indoors to order coffee while Marcos sat on his tall
+black horse scanning the road in front of him. The valley of the Ebro is
+flat here, with bare, brown hills rising on either side like a gigantic
+mud-fence. Strings of carts were making their way towards Saragossa. Far
+away, Marcos could perceive a recurrent break in the dusty line. A cart
+or carriage traveling at a greater than the ordinary market pace was
+making its laborious way past the heavier traffic. It came at length
+within clearer sight; a carriage all white with dust and a pair of
+skinny, Aragonese horses such as may be hired on the road.
+
+The driver seemed to recognise Marcos, for he smiled and raised his hand
+to his hat as he drew up at the inn, a recognised halting-place before
+the last stage of the journey.
+
+Marcos caught sight of a white cap inside the carriage. He leant down on
+his horse's neck and perceived Sor Teresa, who had not seen him looking
+out of the carriage window towards the inn. He rode round to the other
+door and dropped out of the saddle. Then he turned the handle and opened
+the door. But Sor Teresa had no intention of descending. She leant
+forward to say as much and recognised her nephew.
+
+"You!" she exclaimed. And her pale face flushed suddenly. She had been a
+nun for many years and was no doubt a conscientious one, but she had
+never yet learnt to remove all her love from earth to fix it on heaven.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How did you know that I should be here?"
+
+"I guessed it," answered Marcos, who was always practical. "You will like
+some coffee. It is ordered. Come in and warm yourself while the horses
+rest."
+
+He led the way towards the inn.
+
+"What did you say?" he asked, turning on the threshold; for he had heard
+her mutter something.
+
+"I said, 'Thank God'!"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"For your brains, my dear," she answered. "And your strong heart."
+
+Sarrion was making up the fire when they entered the room--lithe and
+young in his riding costume--and he turned, smiling, to meet her. She
+kissed him gravely. There was always something unexplained between these
+two, something to be said which made them both silent.
+
+"There is the coffee," said Marcos, "on the table. We have no time to
+spare."
+
+"Marcos means," explained Sarrion significantly, "that we have no time to
+waste."
+
+"I think he is right," said Sor Teresa.
+
+"Then if that is the case, let us at least speak plainly," said Sarrion,
+"with a due regard," he allowed, with a shrug of the shoulder, "to your
+vows and your position, and all that. We must not embroil you with your
+confessor; nor Juanita with hers."
+
+"You need not think of that so far as Juanita is concerned," said Sor
+Teresa. "It is I who have chosen her confessor."
+
+"Where is she?" asked Marcos.
+
+"She is here, in Saragossa!"
+
+"Why?" asked the man of few words.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Where is she in Saragossa?"
+
+"I don't know. I have not seen her for a fortnight. I only learnt by
+accident yesterday afternoon that she had been brought to Saragossa with
+some other girls who have been postulants for six months and are about to
+become novices."
+
+"But Juanita is not a postulant," said Sarrion, with a laugh.
+
+"She may have been told to consider herself one."
+
+"But no one has a right to do that," said Sarrion pleasantly.
+
+"No."
+
+"And even if she were a novice she could draw back."
+
+"There are some Orders," replied Sor Teresa, slowly stirring her coffee,
+"which make it a matter of pride never to lose a novice."
+
+"Excuse my pertinacity," said Sarrion. "I know that you prefer
+generalities to anything of a personal nature, but does Juanita wish to
+go into religion?"
+
+"As much ..." She paused.
+
+"Or as little," suggested Marcos, who was looking out of the window.
+
+"As many who have entered that life." Sor Teresa completed the sentence
+without noticing Marcos' interruption.
+
+"And these periods of probation," said Sarrion, reverting to those
+generalities which form the language of the cloister. "May they be
+dispensed with?"
+
+"Anything can be dispensed with--by a dispensation," was the reply.
+
+Sarrion laughed, and with an easy tact changed the subject which could
+scarcely be a pleasant one between a professed nun and two men known all
+over Spain as leaders in that party which was erroneously called
+Anti-Clerical, because it held that the Church should not have the
+dominant voice in politics.
+
+"Have you seen our friend, Evasio Mon, lately?" he asked.
+
+"Yes--he is on the road behind me."
+
+"Behind you? I understood that he left Pampeluna yesterday for
+Saragossa," said Sarrion.
+
+"Yes--but I heard at Alagón that he was delayed on the road at the
+Castejon side of Alagón--an accident to his carriage--a broken wheel."
+
+"Ah!" said Sarrion sympathetically. He glanced at Marcos who was looking
+out of the window with a thoughtful smile.
+
+"You yourself have had a hurried journey from Pampeluna," said Sarrion to
+his sister. "I hear the railway line is broken by the Carlists."
+
+"The damage is being repaired," replied Sor Teresa. "My journey was not a
+pleasant one, but that is of no importance since I have arrived."
+
+"Why did you come?" asked Marcos, bluntly. He was a plain-dealer in
+thought and word. If Sor Teresa should embroil herself with her
+confessor, as Sarrion had gracefully put it, by answering his questions,
+that was her affair.
+
+"I came to prevent, if I could, a great mistake."
+
+"You mean that Juanita is quite unfitted for the life into which, for the
+sake of his money, she is being forced or tricked."
+
+"Force has failed," replied Sor Teresa. "Juanita has spirit. She laughed
+in the face of force and refused absolutely."
+
+"And?" muttered Sarrion.
+
+"One may presume that subtler means were used," answered the nun.
+
+"You mean trickery," suggested Marcos. "You mean that her own words were
+twisted into another meaning; that she was committed or convicted out of
+her own lips; that she was brought to Saragossa by trickery, and that by
+trickery she will be dragged unwittingly into religion--you need not
+shake your head. I am saying nothing against the Church. I am a good
+Catholic. It is a question of politics. And in politics you must fight
+with the weapon that the adversary selects. We are only politicians ...
+my dear aunt."
+
+"Is that all?" said Sor Teresa, looking at him with her deep eyes which
+had seen the world before they saw heaven. Things seen leave their trace
+behind the eyes.
+
+Marcos made no answer, but turned away and looked out of the window
+again.
+
+"It is a question of mutual accommodation," put in Sarrion in his lighter
+voice. "Sometimes the Church makes use of politics. And at another time
+it is politics making use of the Church. And each sullies the other on
+each occasion. We shall not let Juanita go into religion. The Church may
+want her and may think that it is for her happiness, but we also have our
+opinion on that point; we also ..."
+
+He broke off with a laugh and threw out his hands in a gesture of
+deprecation; for Sor Teresa had placed her two hands over that part of
+her cap which concealed her ears.
+
+"I can hear nothing," she said. "I can hear nothing."
+
+She removed her hands and sat sipping her coffee in silence. Marcos was
+standing near the window. He could see the white road stretched out
+across the plain for miles.
+
+"What did you intend to do on your arrival in Saragossa if you had not
+met us?" he asked.
+
+"I should have gone to the Casa Sarrion to warn your father or yourself
+that Juanita had been taken from my control and that I did not know where
+she was."
+
+"And then?" inquired Marcos.
+
+"And then I should have gone to Torrero," she answered with a smile at
+his persistence; "where I intend to go now. Then I shall learn at what
+hour and in which chapel the ceremony is to take place to-day."
+
+"The ceremony in which Juanita has been ordered to take part as a
+spectator only?"
+
+Sor Toresa nodded her head.
+
+"It cannot well take place without you?"
+
+"No," she answered. "Neither can it take place without Evasio Mon. One of
+the novices is his niece, and, where possible, the near relations are
+necessarily present."
+
+"Yes--I know," said Marcos. He had apparently studied the subject
+somewhat carefully. "And Evasio Mon is delayed on the road, which gives
+us a little more time to mature our plans."
+
+Sor Teresa said nothing, but glanced towards Marcos who was watching the
+road.
+
+"You need not be anxious, Dolores," said Sarrion, cheerfully. "Between
+politicians these matters settle themselves quietly enough in Spain."
+
+"I ceased to be anxious," replied Sor Teresa, "from the moment that I saw
+Marcos in the inn yard."
+
+It was Marcos who spoke next, after a short silence.
+
+"Your horses are ready, if you are rested," he said. "We shall return to
+Saragossa by a shorter route."
+
+"And I again assure you," added Sor Teresa's brother, "that there is no
+need for anxiety. We shall arrange this matter quite quietly with Evasio
+Mon. We shall take Juanita away from your school to-day. Our cousin
+Peligros is already at the Casa Sarrion waiting her arrival. Marcos has
+arranged these matters."
+
+He made a gesture of the hand, presumably symbolic of Marcos' plans, for
+it was short and sharp.
+
+"There will be nothing for you to do," said Marcos from the window.
+"Waste no time. I see a carriage some miles away."
+
+So Sor Teresa went on her journey. Her dealings with men had been
+confined to members of that sex who went about their purpose in an
+indirect and roundabout way, speaking in generalities, attentive to
+insignificant detail, possessing that smaller sense of proportion which
+is a feminine failing and which must always make a tangled jumble of
+those public affairs in which women and priests may play a part. She had
+come into actual touch in this little room of an obscure inn with a force
+which seemed to walk calmly on its way over the petty tyranny that ruled
+her daily life, which seemed to fear no man, neither God as represented
+by man, but shaped for itself a Deity, large-minded and manly; Who
+considered the broad inner purpose rather than petty detail of outward
+observance.
+
+The Sarrions returned to their gloomy house on the Paseo del Ebro and
+there awaited the information which Sor Teresa alone could give them.
+They had not waited long before the driver of her carriage, who had
+seemed to recognise Marcos on the road from Alagón, brought a note:
+
+"It is at number five, Calle de la Merced, but they will await, E. M."
+
+"And the other carriage that is on the road?" Marcos asked the man. "The
+carriage which brings the caballero--has it arrived in Saragossa?"
+
+"Not yet," answered the driver. "I have heard from one who passed them on
+the road that they had a second mishap just after leaving the inn of The
+Two Trees, where their Excellencies took coffee--a little mishap this
+one, which will only delay them an hour or less. He has no luck, that
+caballero."
+
+The man looked quite gravely at Marcos, who returned the glance as
+solemnly. For they were as brothers, these two, sons of that same mother,
+Nature, with whom they loved to deal, fighting her strong winds, her
+heat, her cold, her dust and rivers, reading her thousand and one secrets
+of the clouds, of night and dawn, which townsmen never know and never
+even suspect. They had a silent contempt for the small subtleties of a
+man's mind, and were half ashamed of the business on which they were now
+engaged.
+
+As the man withdrew in obedience to Marcos' salutation, "Go with God,"
+the clock struck twelve.
+
+"Come," said Marcos to his father, "we must go to number five, Calle de
+la Merced. Do you know the house?"
+
+"Yes; it is one of the many in Saragossa that stand empty, or are
+supposed to stand empty. It is an old religious house which was sacked in
+the disturbances of Christina's reign."
+
+He walked to the window as he spoke and looked out.
+
+The house had been thrown open for the first time for many years, and
+they now occupied one of the larger rooms looking across the garden to
+the Ebro.
+
+"Ah! you have ordered the carriage," he said, seeing the brougham
+standing at the door, and the rusty gates thrown open, giving egress to
+the Paseo del Ebro.
+
+"Yes," answered Marcos in an odd and restrained voice. "To bring Juanita
+back."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE MAKERS OF HISTORY
+Number Five Calle de la Merced is to this day an empty house, like many
+in Saragossa, presenting to the passer-by a dusty stone face and huge
+barred windows over which the spiders have drawn their filmy curtain. For
+one reason or another there are many empty houses in the larger cities of
+Spain and many historical names have passed away. With them have faded
+into oblivion some religious orders and not a few kindred brotherhoods.
+
+Number Five Calle de la Merced has its history like the rest of the
+monasteries, and the rounded cobblestones of the large courtyard bear
+to-day a black stain where, the curious inquirer will be told, the
+caretakers of the empty house have been in the habit of cooking their
+bread on a brazier of charcoal fanned into glow with a palm leaf
+scattering the ashes. But the true story of the black stain is in reality
+quite otherwise. For it was here that the infuriated people burnt the
+chapel furniture when the monasteries of Saragossa were sacked.
+
+The Sarrions left their carriage at the corner of the Calle de la Merced,
+in the shadow of a tall house, for the sun was already strong at midday
+though the snow lay on the hills round Torre Garda. They found the house
+closely barred. The dust and the cobwebs were undisturbed on the huge
+windows. The house was as empty as it had been these forty years.
+
+Marcos tried the door, which resisted his strength like a wall. It was a
+true monastic door with no crack through which even a fly could pass.
+
+"That house stands empty," said an old woman who passed by. "It has stood
+empty since I was a girl. It is accursed. They killed the good fathers
+there."
+
+Sarrion thanked her and walked on. Marcos was examining the dust on the
+road out of the corners of his eyes.
+
+"Two carriages have stopped here," he said, "at this small door which
+looks as if it belonged to the next house."
+
+"Ah!" answered Sarrion, "that is an old trick. I have seen doors like
+that before. There are several in the Calle San Gregorio. Sitting on my
+balcony in the Casa Sarrion I have seen a man go into one house and look
+out of the window of the next a minute later."
+
+"Mon has not arrived," said Marcos, with his eye on the road. "He has the
+carriage of One-eyed Pedro whose near horse has a circular shoe."
+
+"But we must not wait for him. The risk would be too great. They may
+dispense with his presence."
+
+"No," answered Marcos thoughtfully, looking at the smaller door which
+seemed to belong to the next house. "We must not wait."
+
+As he spoke a carriage appeared at the farther end of the Calle de la
+Merced, which is a straight and narrow street.
+
+"Here they come," he added, and drew his father into a doorway across the
+street.
+
+It was indeed the carriage of the man known as One-eyed Pedro, a victim
+to the dust of Aragon, and the near horse left a circular mark with its
+hind foot on the road.
+
+Evasio Mon descended from the carriage and paid the man, giving, it would
+seem, a liberal "propina," for the One-eyed Pedro expectorated on the
+coin before putting it into his pocket.
+
+Mon tapped on the door with the stick he always carried. It was instantly
+opened to give him admittance, and closed as quickly behind him.
+
+"Ah!" whispered Sarrion, with a smile on his keen face. "I have heard
+them knock like that on the doors in the Calle San Gregorio. It is simple
+and yet distinctive."
+
+He turned and illustrated the knock on the balustrade of the stairs up
+which they had hastened.
+
+"We will try it," he added grimly, "on that door when Evasio has had time
+to go away from it."
+
+They waited a few minutes, and then went out again into the Calle de la
+Merced. It was the luncheon hour, and they had the street to themselves.
+They stood for a moment in the doorway through which Mon had passed.
+
+"Listen," said Marcos in a whisper.
+
+It was the sound of an organ coming almost muffled from the back of the
+empty house, and it seemed to travel through long corridors before
+reaching them.
+
+"They had," said Sarrion, "so far as I recollect, a large and beautiful
+chapel in the patio opposite to that great door, which has probably been
+built up on the inside."
+
+Then he gave the peculiar knock on the door. At a gesture from Marcos he
+stood back so that he who opened the door would need to open it wide and
+almost come out into the street to see who had summoned him.
+
+They heard the door opening, and the head that came round the door was
+that of the tall and powerful friar who had come to the assistance of
+Francisco de Mogente in the Calle San Gregorio. He drew back at once and
+tried to close the door, but both father and son threw their weight
+against it and slowly pressed him back, enabling Marcos at length to get
+his shoulder in. Both men were somewhat smaller than the friar, but both
+were quicker to see an advantage and take it.
+
+In a moment the friar abandoned the attempt and ran down the long
+corridor, into which the light filtered dimly through cobwebs. Marcos
+gave chase while Sarrion stayed behind to close the door. At the corner
+of the corridor the friar slipped, and, finding himself out-matched,
+raised his voice to shout. But the cry was smothered by Marcos, who leapt
+at him like a cat, and they rolled on the floor together.
+
+The friar was heavier and stronger. He had led a simple and healthy life,
+his muscles were toughened by his wanderings and the hardships of his
+calling. At first Marcos was underneath, but as Sarrion hurried up he saw
+his son come out on the top and heard at the same moment a dull thud. It
+was the friar's head against the floor, a Guipuzcoan trick of wrestling
+which usually meant death to its victim, but the friar's thick cloak
+happened to fall between his head and the hard floor. This alone saved
+him; for Marcos was a Spaniard and did not care at that moment whether he
+killed the holy man or not. Indeed Sarrion hastily leant down to hold him
+back and Marcos rose to his feet with blazing eyes and the blood
+trickling from a cut lip. The friar would have killed him if he could;
+for the blood that runs in Southern men is soon heated and the primeval
+instinct of fight never dies out of the human heart.
+
+
+"He is not killed," said Marcos breathlessly.
+
+"For which we may thank Heaven," added Sarrion with a short laugh. "Come,
+let us find the chapel."
+
+They hurried on through the dimly lighted corridors guided by the sound
+of the distant organ. There seemed to be many closed doors between them
+and it; for only the deeper and more resonant notes reached their ears.
+They gained the large patio where the grass grew thickly, and the
+iron-work of the well in the centre was hidden by the trailing ropes of
+last year's clematis.
+
+"The chapel is there, but the door is built up," said Sarrion pointing to
+a doorway which had been filled in. And they paused for a moment as all
+men must pause when they find sudden evidence that that Sword which was
+brought into the world nineteen hundred years ago is not yet sheathed.
+
+Marcos had already found a second door leading from the cloister that
+surrounded the patio, back in the direction from which they had come.
+They entered the corridor which turned sharply back again--the handiwork
+of some architect skilful, not in the carrying of sound, but in killing
+it.
+
+"It is the way to the organ loft," whispered Marcos.
+
+"It is probably the only entrance to the chapel."
+
+They opened a door and were faced by a second one covered and padded with
+faded felt. Marcos pushed it ajar and the notes of the organ almost
+deafened them. They were in the chapel, behind the organ, at the west
+end.
+
+They passed in and stood in the dark, the notes of the great organ
+braying in their ears. They could hear the panting of the man working at
+the bellows. Marcos led the way and they passed on into the chapel which
+was dimly lighted by candles. The subtle odour of stale incense hung
+heavily in the atmosphere which seemed to vibrate as if the deeper notes
+of the organ shook the building in their vain search for an exit.
+
+The chapel was long and narrow. Marcos and his father were alone at the
+west end, concealed by the font of which the wooden cover rose like a
+miniature spire almost to the ceiling. A group of people were kneeling on
+the bare floor by the screen which had never been repaired but showed
+clearly where the carving had been knocked and torn to make the bonfire
+in the patio.
+
+Two priests were on the altar steps while the choristers were dimly
+visible through the broken railing of the screen. There seemed to be some
+nuns within the screen while others knelt without; four knelt apart, as
+if awaiting admission to the inner sanctum.
+
+"That is Juanita," whispered Marcos, pointing with a steady finger. The
+girl kneeling next to her was weeping. But Juanita knelt upright, her
+face half turned so that they could see her clear-cut profile against the
+candle-light beyond. To those who study human nature, every attitude or
+gesture is of value; there were energy and courage in the turn of
+Juanita's head. She was listening.
+
+Near to her the motionless black form of Sor Teresa towered among the
+worshippers. She was looking straight in front of her. Not far away a
+bowed figure all curved and cringing with weak emotion--a sight to make
+men pause and think--was Leon de Mogente. Behind him, upright with a
+sleek bowed head, was Evasio Mon. From his position and in the attitude
+in which he knelt, he could without moving see Juanita, and was probably
+watching her.
+
+The chapel was carpeted with an old and faded matting of grass such as is
+made on all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Marcos and Sarrion went
+forward noiselessly. Instinctively they crossed themselves as they neared
+the chancel. Evasio Mon was nearest to them kneeling apart, a few paces
+behind Leon. He could see every one from this position, but he did not
+hear the Sarrions a few yards behind him.
+
+At this moment Juanita turned round and perceiving them gave a little
+start which Mon saw. He turned his head to the left; Sarrion was standing
+in the semi-darkness at his shoulder. Then he turned to the right and
+there was Marcos, motionless, with a handkerchief held to his lips.
+
+Evasio Mon reflected for a moment; then he turned to Sarrion with his
+ready smile.
+
+"Do you come here to see me?" he whispered.
+
+"I want you to get Juanita de Mogente away from this as quickly as
+possible," returned Sarrion in a whisper. "We need not disturb the
+service."
+
+"But, my friend," protested Mon, still smiling, "by what right?"
+
+"That you must ask of Marcos."
+
+Mon turned to Marcos in silent inquiry and he received a wordless answer;
+for Marcos held under his eyes in the half light the certificate of
+marriage signed by that political bishop who was no Carlist, and was ever
+a thorn in the side of the Churchmen striving for an absolute monarchy.
+
+Mon shook his head still smiling, more in sorrow than in anger, at the
+misfortune which his duty compelled him to point out.
+
+"It is not legal, my dear Marcos; it is not legal."
+
+He glanced round into Marcos' still face and perceived perhaps that he
+might as well try the effect of words upon the stone pillar behind him.
+He reflected again for a moment, while the service proceeded and the
+voices of the choir rose and fell like the waves of the sea in a deep
+cave. It was a simple enough ceremonial denuded of many of the mediaeval
+mummeries which have been revived by a newer emotional Church for the
+edification of the weak-minded.
+
+Juanita glanced back again and saw Mon kneeling between the two
+motionless upright men, who were grave while he smiled ... and smiled.
+
+Then at length he rose to his feet and stood for a moment. If he ever
+hesitated in his life it was at that instant. And Marcos' hand came
+forward beneath his eyes pointing inexorably at Juanita. There was a
+pause in the service, a momentary silence only broken by the smothered
+sobs of the novice who knelt next to Juanita.
+
+The organ rolled out its deep voice again, and under cover of the sound
+Mon stepped forward and touched Juanita on the shoulder. She turned
+instantly, and he beckoned to her to follow him. If the priests at the
+altar perceived anything they made no sign. Sor Teresa, absorbed in
+prayer, never turned her head. The service went on uninterruptedly.
+
+Sarrion led the way and Mon followed. Juanita glanced at Marcos,
+indicated with a nod Evasio Mon's back, and made a gay little grimace,
+suggestive of that schemer's discomfiture. Then she followed Mon, and
+Marcos came noiselessly behind her.
+
+They passed out through the dark passage behind the organ into the old
+cloister.
+
+There Mon turned to look at Juanita and from her to Marcos. He was
+distressed for them.
+
+"It is illegal," he repeated, gently. "Without a dispensation."
+
+And by way of reply Marcos handed him a second paper, bearing at its foot
+the oval seal of the Vatican. It was the usual dispensation, easy enough
+to procure, for the marriage of an orphan under age.
+
+"I am glad," said Mon, and he tried to look it.
+
+Sarrion went on into the narrow corridor. The friar was sitting on a
+worm-eaten bench there, leaning back against the wall, his hand over his
+eyes.
+
+"He is hurt," explained Marcos, simply. "He tried to stop us."
+
+Mon made no comment but accompanied them to the door, which he closed
+behind them, and then returned to the chapel, reflecting perhaps upon how
+small an incident the history of nations may turn. For if the friar had
+been able to withstand the Sarrions--if there had been a grating to the
+small door in the Calle de la Merced--Don Carlos de Borbone might have
+worn the three crowns of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+COUSIN PELIGROS
+The novitiate dress had been dispensed with, and Juanita wore her usual
+school-dress of black, with a black mantilla. They therefore walked the
+length of the Calle de la Merced without attracting undue attention.
+
+Juanita's cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. She
+slipped her hand within Sarrion's arm and gave it a little squeeze of
+affection.
+
+"How kind of you to come," she said. "I knew I could trust you. I was
+never afraid."
+
+Sarrion smiled a little dryly and glanced towards Marcos, who had met and
+overcome all the difficulties, and who now walked quietly by his side,
+concealing the bloodstains on the handkerchief covering his lips.
+
+Then Juanita let go Sarrion's left arm and ran round behind him to take
+the other, while with her right hand she took Marcos' left arm.
+
+"There," she cried, with a laugh. "Now I am safe from all the world--from
+all the world! Is it not so?"
+
+"Yes," answered Marcos, turning to look at her as she moved, her feet
+hardly touching the ground, between them.
+
+"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked.
+
+"I think you have grown."
+
+"I know I have," she answered gravely. And she stopped in the street to
+stand her full height and to draw her slim bodice in at the waist. "I am
+an inch taller than Milagros, but Milagros is getting most preposterously
+fat. The girls tell her that she will soon be like Sor Dorothea who is so
+huge that she has to be hauled up from her knees like a sack that has
+been saying its prayers. That stupid Milagros cries when they say it."
+
+"Is Milagros going to be a nun?" asked Sarrion, absent-mindedly. He was
+thinking of something else and looked at Juanita with a speculative
+glance. She was so gay and inconsequent.
+
+"Heaven forbid!" was the reply. "She says she is going to marry a
+soldier. I can't think why. She says she likes the drums. But I told her
+she could buy a drum and hire a man to hit it. She is very rich, you
+know. It is not worth marrying for that, is it?"
+
+"No," answered Marcos, to whom the question had been addressed.
+
+"She may get tired of drums, you know. Just as we get tired saying our
+prayers at school. I am sure she ought to reflect before she marries a
+soldier. I wouldn't if I were she. Oh! but I forgot...."
+
+She paused and turning to Marcos she gripped his arm with a confidential
+emphasis. "Do you know, Marcos, I keep on forgetting that we are married.
+You don't mind, do you? I am not a bit sorry, you know. I am so glad,
+because it gets me away from school. And I hate school. And there was
+always the dread that they would make me a nun despite us all. You don't
+know what it is to feel helpless and to have a dread; to wake up with it
+at night and wish you were dead and all the bother was over."
+
+"It is all over now, without being dead," Marcos assured her, with his
+slow smile.
+
+"Quite sure?"
+
+"Quite sure," answered Marcos.
+
+"And I shall never go back to school again. And they have no power over
+me; neither Sor Teresa, nor Sor Dorothea, nor the dear mother. We always
+call her the 'dear mother,' you know, because we have to; but we hate
+her. But that is all over now, is it not?"
+
+"Yes," answered Marcos.
+
+"Then I am glad I married you," said Juanita, with conviction.
+
+"And I need not be afraid of Seńor Mon, with his gentle smile?" asked
+Juanita, turning on Marcos with a sudden shrewd gravity.
+
+"No."
+
+She gave a great sigh of relief and shook back her mantilla. Then she
+laughed and turned to Sarrion.
+
+"He always says 'yes' or 'no'--and only that," she remarked
+confidentially to him. "But somehow it seems enough."
+
+They had reached the corner of the street now, and the carriage was
+approaching them. It was one of the heavy carriages used only on state
+occasions which had stood idle for many years in the stables of the
+Palacio Sarrion. The horses were from Torre Garda and the men in their
+quiet liveries greeted her with country frankness.
+
+"It is one of the grand carriages," said Juanita.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+"To take you home," replied Sarrion.
+
+Juanita got into the carriage and sat down in silence. The man who closed
+the door touched his hat, not to the Sarrions but to her; and she
+returned the salutation with a friendly smile.
+
+"Where are we going?" she asked after a pause.
+
+"To the Casa Sarrion," was the reply.
+
+"Is it open, after all these years?"
+
+"Yes," answered Sarrion.
+
+"But why?"
+
+"For you," answered Sarrion.
+
+Juanita turned and looked out of the window, with bright and thoughtful
+eyes. She asked no more questions and they drove to the Palacio Sarrion
+in silence.
+
+There they found Cousin Peligros awaiting them.
+
+Cousin Peligros was a Sarrion and seemed in some indefinite way to
+consider that in so being and so existing she placed the world under an
+obligation. That she considered the world bound, in return for the honour
+she conferred upon it, to support her in comfort and deference was a
+patent fact hardly worth putting into words.
+
+"The old families," she was in the habit of saying with a sigh, "are
+dying out."
+
+At the same time she made a little gesture with outspread palms, and
+folded her white hands complacently on her lap as if to indicate that
+society was not left comfortless--that she was still there. From her
+inferiors she looked for the utmost deference. Her white hands had never
+done an hour's work. She was ignorant and idle; but she was a lady and a
+Sarrion.
+
+Cousin Peligros lived in a little apartment in Madrid, which she fondly
+imagined to be the hub of the social universe.
+
+"They all come," she said, "to consult the Senorita de Sarrion upon
+points of etiquette."
+
+And she patted the air condescendingly with her left hand. There are some
+people who seem to be created by a far-seeing Providence as a solemn
+warning.
+
+"Cousin Peligros," said Juanita one day, after listening respectfully to
+a lecture on the care of the hands, "lives in a little field of her own."
+
+"Like a scarecrow," added Marcos, the taciturn.
+
+And this was the lady who awaited them at the Palacio Sarrion. She had
+been summoned from Madrid by Sarrion, who paid the expenses of the
+journey; no small item, by the way. For Cousin Peligros, like many people
+who live at the expense of others, sought to mitigate the bitterness of
+the bread of charity by spreading it very thickly with other people's
+butter.
+
+She did not come down to the door to meet them when the carriage
+clattered over the cobble-stones of the echoing patio.
+
+Such a proceeding might have lowered her dignity in the eyes of the
+servants, who, to do them justice, saw right through Cousin Peligros
+into the vacuum that lay behind her. She sat in state in the great
+drawing-room with her hands folded on her lap and placidly arranged her
+proposed mode of greeting the newcomers. She had been informed that
+Sarrion had found it necessary to take Juanita de Mogente away from the
+convent school and to assume the cares of that guardianship which had
+always been an understood obligation mutually binding between himself
+and Francisco de Mogente.
+
+Cousin Peligros was therefore keenly alive to the fact, that Juanita
+required at this critical moment of her life a good and abiding example.
+Hers also was the blessed knowledge that no one in all Spain was better
+fitted to offer such an example than the Seńorita Peligros de Sarrion.
+
+She therefore sat in her best black silk dress in an attitude subtly
+combining, with a kind tolerance for all who were so unfortunate as not
+to be Sarrions, a complacent determination to do her duty.
+
+It is to be regretted that she was for a time left sitting thus, for
+Perro was in the hall, and his greeting of Juanita had to be acknowledged
+with several violent hugs, which resulted in Juanita's mantilla getting
+mixed up with Perro's collar. Then there were the pictures and the armour
+to be inspected on the stairs. For Juanita had never seen the palace with
+its shutters open.
+
+"Are they all Sarrions?" she exclaimed. "Oh mi alma! What a fierce
+company. That old gentleman with a spike on top of his hat is a crusader
+I suppose. And there is a helmet hanging on the wall beneath the
+portrait, with a great dent in it. But I expect he hit him back again.
+Don't you think so, Uncle Ramon, if he was a Sarrion?"
+
+"I dare say he did," answered the Count.
+
+"I wish I was a Sarrion," said Juanita, looking up at the armour with a
+light in her eyes.
+
+"You are one," replied Sarrion, gravely.
+
+She stopped and glanced back over her shoulder at him. Marcos was some
+way behind, and took no part in the conversation.
+
+"So I am," she said. "I forgot."
+
+And with a little sigh, as of a realised responsibility, she continued
+her way up the wide stairs. The sight of Cousin Peligros, upright on a
+chair, dispelled Juanita's momentary gravity, however.
+
+"Oh, Cousin Peligros," she cried, running to her and taking both her
+hands. "Just think! I have left school. No more punishments--no more
+grammar--no more arithmetic!"
+
+Cousin Peligros had risen and endeavoured to maintain that dignity which
+she felt to be so beneficial an example to the world. But Juanita
+emphasised each item of her late education with a jerk which gradually
+deranged Cousin Peligros' prim mantilla. Then she danced her round an
+impalpable mulberry bush until the poor lady was breathless.
+
+"No more Primes at six o'clock in the morning," concluded Juanita,
+suddenly allowing Cousin Peligros to sit again. "Do you ever go to Primes
+at six o'clock in the morning, Cousin Peligros?"
+
+"No," was the grave answer. "Such things are not expected of ladies."
+
+"How thoughtful of Heaven!" exclaimed Juanita, with a light laugh. "Then
+I do not mind being grownup--and putting up my hair--if you will lend me
+two hairpins."
+
+She fell on Cousin Peligros' mantilla and extracted two hairpins from it
+despite the resistance of the soft white hands. Then she twisted up the
+heavy plait that hung to her waist, threw back her mantilla and stood
+laughing before the old lady.
+
+"There--I am grown-up! I am more grown-up than you, you know; for
+I am..."
+
+She broke off, and turning to Sarrion, asked,
+
+"Does she know ... does she know the joke?"
+
+"No," said Sarrion.
+
+"We are married," she said, standing squarely in front of Cousin
+Peligros.
+
+"Married ..." echoed the disciple of etiquette, faintly. "Married--to
+whom?"
+
+"Marcos and I."
+
+But Cousin Peligros only gasped and covered her face with her hands.
+
+Marcos came into the room at this moment and scarcely looked at Cousin
+Peligros. Those white hands played so large a part in her small daily
+life that they were always in evidence, and it did not seem out of place
+that they should cover her foolish face.
+
+"I found all your clothes ready packed at the school," he said,
+addressing Juanita. "Sor Teresa brought them with her from Pampeluna. You
+will find them in your room."
+
+"Oh ..." groaned Cousin Peligros.
+
+"What is it?" inquired Marcos practically. "What is the matter with her?"
+
+"She has just been told that we are married," explained Juanita, airily.
+"And I think you shocked her by mentioning my clothes. You shouldn't do
+it, Marcos."
+
+And she went and stood by Cousin Peligros with her hand upon her shoulder
+as if to protect her. She shook her head gravely at Marcos.
+
+Cousin Peligros rose rigidly and walked towards the door.
+
+"I will go," she said. "I will see that your room is in order. I have
+never before been made an object of ridicule in a gentleman's house."
+
+"But we may surely laugh and be happy in a gentleman's house, may we
+not?" cried Juanita, running after her, and throwing one arm round her
+rather unbending and capacious waist. "You are an old dear, and you must
+not be so solemn about it. Marcos and I are only married for fun, you
+know."
+
+And the door closed behind them, shutting off Juanita's voluble
+explanations.
+
+"You see," said Sarrion, after a pause. "She is happy enough."
+
+"Now," answered Marcos. "But she may find out some day that she is not."
+
+Juanita came back before long and found Sarrion alone.
+
+"Where is Marcos?" she asked.
+
+"He is taking a siesta," answered Sarrion.
+
+"Like a poor man."
+
+"Yes, like a poor man. He was not in bed all last night. You had a
+narrower escape of being made a nun than you suspect."
+
+Juanita's face fell. She went to the window and stood there looking out.
+
+"When are we going to Torre Garda?" she asked, after a long silence. "I
+hate towns ... and people. I want to smell the pines ... and the
+bracken."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+AT TORRE GARDA
+
+The river known as the Wolf finds its source in the eternal snows of the
+Pyrenees. Amid the solitary grandeur of the least known mountains in
+Europe it rolls and tumbles--tossed hither and thither in its rocky bed,
+fed by this and that streamlet from stony gorges--down to the green
+valley of Torre Garda.
+
+Here there is a village crouched on either side of the river-bed, and
+above it on a plateau surrounded by chestnut trees and pines, stands the
+house of the Sarrions. In winter the wholesome smell of wood smoke rising
+from the chimneys pervades the air. In summer the warm breath of the
+pines creeps down the mountains to mingle with the cooler air that stirs
+the bracken.
+
+Below all, summer and winter, at evening and at dawn, night and day,
+growls the Wolf--so named from the continuous low-pitched murmur of its
+waters through the defile a mile below the village. The men of the valley
+of the Wolf have a hundred tales of their river in its different moods,
+and firmly believe that the voice which is ever in their ears speaks to
+such as have understanding, of every change in the weather. The old women
+have no doubt that it speaks also of those things that must affect the
+prince and the peasant alike; of good and ill fortune; of life and of
+death; of hope and its slow, slow dying in the heart. Certain it is that
+the river had its humours not to be accounted for by outward
+things--seeming to be gay without reason, like any human heart, in dull
+weather, and murmuring dismally when the sun shone and the birds were
+singing in the trees.
+
+In clearest summer weather, the water would sometimes run thick and
+yellow for days, the result of some landslip where the snow and ice were
+melting. Sometimes the Wolf would hurl down a mass of debris--a forest
+torn from the mountainside by avalanche, the dead bodies of a few stray
+sheep, or a fox or a wolf or the dun corpse of a mountain bear. Many in
+the valley had seen tables and chairs and the roof, perhaps, of a house
+caught in the timbers of the old bridge below the village. And the river,
+of course, had exacted its toll from more than one family. It was
+jocularly said at the Venta that the Wolf was Royalist; for in the first
+Carlist war it had fought for Queen Christina, doing to death a whole
+company of insurgents at that which is known as the False Ford, where it
+would seem that a child could pass while in reality no horseman might
+hope to get through.
+
+The house of Torre Garda was not itself ancient though it undoubtedly
+stood on the site of some mediaeval watch-tower. It had been built in the
+days of Ferdinand VII at the period when French architecture was running
+rife over the world, and had the appearance of a Gascon chateau. It was a
+long low house of two stories. Every room on the ground floor opened with
+long French windows to a terrace built to the edge of the plateau, where
+a fountain splashed its clear spring water into a stone basin, where gray
+stone urns stood on lichen-covered pillars amid flower-beds.
+
+Every room on the first floor had windows opening on a wide balcony which
+ran the length of the house and was protected from the rain and midday
+sun by the far-stretching eaves of the roof. The house was of gray stone,
+roofed with slabs of the same, such as peel off the slopes of the
+Pyrenees and slide one over the other to the valleys below. The pointed
+turrets at each corner were roofed with the small green tiles that the
+Moors loved. The winds and the snow and the rain had toned all Torre
+Garda down to a cool gray-green against which the four cypress trees on
+the terrace stood rigid like sentinels keeping eternal guard over the
+valley.
+
+Above the house rose a pine-slope where the snow lingered late into the
+summer. Above this again were rocks and broken declivities of sliding
+stones; and, crowning all, the everlasting snow.
+
+From the terrace of Torre Garda a strong voice could make itself heard in
+the valley where tobacco grew and ripened, or on the height where no
+vegetation lived at all. The house seemed to hang between sky and earth,
+and the air that moved the cypress trees was cool and thin--a very breath
+of heaven to make thinkers wonder why any who can help it should choose
+to live in towns.
+
+The green shutters had been closed across the windows for nearly three
+months, when on one spring morning the villagers looked up to see the
+house astir and the windows opened wide.
+
+There had been much to detain the Sarrions at Saragossa and Juanita had
+to wait for the gratification of her desire to smell the pines and the
+bracken again.
+
+It seemed that it was no one's business to question the validity of the
+strange marriage in the chapel of Our Lady of the Shadows. Evasio Mon who
+was supposed to know more about it than any other, only smiled and said
+nothing. Leon de Mogente was absorbed in his own peculiar selfishness
+which was not of this world but the next. He fell into the mistake common
+to ecstatic minds that thoughts of Heaven justify a deliberate neglect of
+obvious duties on earth.
+
+"Leon," said Juanita gaily to Cousin Peligros, "will assuredly be a saint
+some day: he has so little sense of humour."
+
+For Leon it seemed could not be brought to understand Juanita's sunny
+view of life.
+
+"You may look solemn and talk of great mistakes as much as you like," she
+said to her brother. "But I know I was never meant for a nun. It will all
+come right in the end. Uncle Ramon says so. I don't know what he means.
+But he says it will all come right in the end."
+
+And she shook her head with that wisdom of the world which is given to
+women only; which may live in the same heart as ignorance and innocence
+and yet be superior to all the knowledge that all the sages have ever put
+in books.
+
+There were lawyers to be consulted and moreover paid, and Juanita gaily
+splashed down her name in a bold schoolgirl hand on countless documents.
+
+There is a Spanish proverb warning the unwary never to drink water in the
+dark or sign a paper unread. And Marcos made Juanita read everything she
+signed. She was quick enough, and only laughed when he protested that she
+had not taken in the full meaning of the document.
+
+"I understand it quite enough," she answered. "It is not worth troubling
+about. It is only money. You men think of nothing else. I do not want to
+understand it any better."
+
+"Not now; but some day you will."
+
+Juanita looked at him, pen in hand, momentarily grave.
+
+"You are always thinking of what I shall do ... some day," she said.
+
+And Marcos did not deny it.
+
+"You seem to hedge me around with precautions against that time," she
+continued, thoughtfully, and looked at him with bright and searching
+eyes.
+
+At length all the formalities were over, and they were free to go to
+Torre Garda. Events were moving rapidly in Spain at this time, and the
+small wonder of Juanita's marriage was already a thing half forgotten.
+Had it not been for her great wealth the whole matter would have passed
+unnoticed; for wealth is still a burden upon its owners, and there are
+many who must perforce go away sorrowful on account of their great
+possessions. Half the world guessed, however, at the truth, and every man
+judged the Sarrions from his own political standpoint, praising or
+blaming according to preconceived convictions. But there were some in
+high places who knew that a great danger had been averted.
+
+Cousin Peligros had consented to Sarrion's proposal that she should for a
+time make her home with him, either at Torre Garda or at Saragossa. She
+had lived in troublous times, but was convinced that the Carlists, like
+Heaven, made special provision for ladies.
+
+"No one," said she, "will molest me," and she folded her hands in
+complacent serenity on her lap.
+
+She had a profound distrust of railways, in which common mode of
+conveyance she suspected a democratic spirit, though to this day the
+Spanish ticket collector presents himself, hat in hand, at the door of a
+first-class carriage, and the time-table finds itself subservient to the
+convenience of any Excellency who may not have finished his coffee in the
+refreshment-room.
+
+Cousin Peligros was therefore glad enough to quit the train at Pampeluna,
+where the carriage from Torre Garda awaited them. There were saddle
+horses for Sarrion and Marcos, and a handful of troops were waiting in
+the shadow of the trees outside of the station yard. An officer rode
+forward and paid his respects to Juanita.
+
+"You do not recognise me, Senorita," he said. "You remember the chapel of
+Our Lady of the Shadows?"
+
+"Yes. I remember," she answered, shaking hands. "We caught you saying
+your prayers when we arrived."
+
+He blushed as he laughed; for he was a simple man leading a hard and
+lonely life.
+
+"Yes, Senorita; why not?"
+
+"I have no doubt," said Juanita, looking at him shrewdly, "that the
+saints heard you."
+
+"Marcos," he explained, "wrote to ask me for a few men to take your
+carriage through the danger zone. So I took the liberty of riding with
+them myself. I am the watch-dog, Seńorita, at the gate of your valley.
+You are safe enough once you are within the valley of the Wolf."
+
+They talked together until Sarrion rode forward to announce that all were
+ready to depart, while Cousin Peligros sat with pinched lips and
+disapproving face. She took an early opportunity of mentioning that
+ladies should not talk to gentlemen with such familiarity and freedom;
+that, above all, a smile was sufficient acknowledgment for any jest
+except those made by the very aged, when to laugh was a sign of respect.
+For Cousin Peligros had been brought up in a school of manners now
+fortunately extinct.
+
+"He is Marcos' friend," explained Juanita. "Besides, he is a nice person.
+I know a nice person when I see one," she concluded, with a friendly nod
+towards the watch-dog of the valley of the Wolf, who was talking in the
+shade of the trees with Marcos.
+
+The men rode together in advance of the carriages and the luggage carts.
+The journey was uneventful, and the sun was setting in a cloudless west
+when the mouth of the valley was reached. It was Cousin Peligros' happy
+lot to consider herself the centre of any party and the pivot upon which
+social events must turn. She bowed graciously to Captain Zeneta when he
+came forward to take his leave.
+
+"It was most considerate of Marcos," she said to Juanita in his hearing,
+"to provide this escort. He no doubt divined that, accustomed as I am to
+living in Madrid, I might have been nervous in these remote places."
+
+Juanita was tired. They were near their journey's end. She did not take
+the trouble to explain the situation to Cousin Peligros. There are some
+fools whom the world allows to continue in their folly because it is less
+trouble. Marcos and Sarrion were riding together now in silence. From
+time to time a peasant waiting at the roadside came forward to exchange a
+few words with one or the other. The road ascended sharply now, and the
+pace was slow. The regular tramp of the horses, the quiet evening hour,
+the fatigue of the journey were conducive to contemplation and silence.
+
+When Marcos helped Cousin Peligros and Juanita to descend from the
+high-swung traveling carriage, Juanita was too tired to notice one or two
+innovations. When, as a schoolgirl, she had spent her holidays at Torre
+Garde no change had been made in the simple household. But now Marcos had
+sent from Saragossa such modern furniture as women need to-day. There
+were new chairs on the terrace. Her own bedroom at the western corner of
+the house, next door to the huge room occupied by Sarrion, had been
+entirely refurnished and newly decorated.
+
+"Oh, how pretty!" she exclaimed, and Marcos lingering in the long passage
+perhaps heard the remark.
+
+Later, when they were all in the drawing-room awaiting dinner, Juanita
+clasped Sarrion's arm with her wonted little gesture of affection.
+
+"You are an old dear," she said to him, "to have my room done up so
+beautifully, so clean, and white, and simple--just as you know I should
+like it. Oh, you need not smile so grimly. You know it was just what I
+should like--did he not, Marcos?"
+
+"Yes," answered Marcos.
+
+"And it is the only room in the house that has been done. I looked into
+the others to see--into your great barrack, and into Marcos' room at the
+end of the balcony. I have guessed why Marcos has that room ..."
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"So that you can see down the valley--so that Perro who sleeps on the
+balcony outside the open window has merely to lift his head to look right
+down to where the other watch-dogs are, ten miles away."
+
+After dinner, Juanita discovered that there was a new piano in the
+drawing-room, in addition to a number of those easier chairs which our
+grandmothers never knew. Cousin Peligros protested that they were
+unnecessary and even conducive to sloth and indolence. Still protesting,
+she took the most comfortable and sat with folded hands listening to
+Juanita finding out the latest waltz, with variations of her own, on the
+new piano.
+
+Sarrion and Marcos were on the terrace smoking. The small new moon was
+nearing the west. The night would be dark after its setting. They were
+silent, listening to the voice of their ancestral river as it growled,
+heavy with snow, through the defile. Presently a servant brought coffee
+and told Marcos that a messenger was waiting to deliver a note. After the
+manner of Spain the messenger was invited to come and deliver his letter
+in person. He was a traveling knife-grinder, he explained, and had
+received the letter from a man on the road whose horse had gone lame. One
+must be mutually helpful on the road.
+
+The letter was from Zeneta at the end of the valley; written hastily in
+pencil. The Carlists were in force between him and Pampeluna; would
+Marcos ride down to the camp and hear details?
+
+Marcos rose at once and threw his cigarette away. He looked towards the
+lighted windows of the drawing-room.
+
+"No good saying anything about it," he said. "I shall be back by
+breakfast time. They will probably not notice my absence."
+
+He was gone--the sound of his horse's feet was drowned in the voice of
+the river--before Juanita came out to the terrace, a slim shadowy form in
+her white evening dress. She stood for a minute or two in silence, until,
+her eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, she perceived Sarrion and
+an empty chair. Perro usually walked gravely to her and stood in front of
+her awaiting a jest whenever she came. She looked round. Perro was not
+there.
+
+"Where is Marcos?" she asked, taking the empty chair.
+
+"He has been sent for to the valley. He has gone."
+
+"Gone!" echoed Juanita, standing up again. She went to the stone
+balustrade of the terrace and looked over into the darkness.
+
+"I heard him cross the bridge a few minutes ago," Sarrion said quietly.
+
+"He might have said good-bye."
+
+Sarrion turned slowly in his chair and looked at her.
+
+"He probably did not wish his comings and goings to be talked of by
+Cousin Peligros," he suggested.
+
+"Still, he might have said good-bye ... to me."
+
+She turned again and leaning her arms on the gray stone she stood in
+silence looking down into the valley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+JUANITA GROWS UP
+Marcos' horse, the Moor, had performed the journey to Pampeluna once in
+the last twelve hours. He was a strong horse accustomed to long journeys.
+But Marcos chose another, an older and staider animal of less value,
+better fitted for night work.
+
+He wished to do the journey quickly and return by breakfast-time; he was
+not in a mood to spare his beast. Men who live in stirring times and meet
+death face to face quite familiarly from day to day, as Englishmen meet
+the rain, soon acquire the philosophy which consists in taking the good
+things the gods send them, unhesitatingly and thankfully.
+
+Juanita was at Torre Garda at last--after months of patient waiting and
+watching, after dangers foreseen and faced--that was enough for Marcos de
+Sarrion.
+
+He therefore pressed his horse. Although he was alert and watchful
+because it was his habit to be so, he was less careful perhaps than
+usual; he rode at a greater pace than was prudent on such a road, by so
+dark a night.
+
+The spring comes early on the Southern slope of the Pyrenees. It was a
+warm night and there had been no rain for some days. The dust lay thickly
+on the road, muffling the beat of the horse's feet. The Wolf roared in
+its narrow bed. The road, only recently made practicable for carriages at
+Sarrion's expense, was not a safe one. It hung like a cornice on the
+left-hand bank of the river and at certain corners the stones fell from
+the mountain heights almost continuously. In other places the heavy stone
+buttresses had been undermined by the action of the river. It was a road
+that needed continuous watching and repair. But Marcos had ridden over it
+a few hours earlier and there had been no change of weather since.
+
+He knew the weak places and passed them carefully. Three miles below the
+village, the river passes through a gorge and the road mounts to the lip
+of the overhanging cliffs. There is no danger here; for there are no
+falling stones from above. It is to this passage that the Wolf owes its
+name and in a narrow place invisible from the road the water seems to
+growl after the manner of a wild beast at meat.
+
+Marcos' horse knew the road well enough, which, moreover, was easy here.
+For it is cut from the rock on the left-hand side, while its outer
+boundary is marked at intervals by white stones. The horse was perhaps
+too cautious. By night a rider must leave to his mount the decision as to
+what hills may be descended at a trot. Marcos knew that the old horse
+beneath him invariably decided to walk down the easiest declivity. At the
+summit of the road the horse was trotting at a long, regular stride. On
+the turn of the hill he proposed to stop, although he must have known
+that the descent was easy. Marcos touched him with the spur and he
+started forward. The next instant he fell so suddenly and badly that his
+forehead scraped the road.
+
+Marcos was thrown so hard and so far that he fell on his head and
+shoulder three feet in front of the horse. It was the narrowest place in
+the whole road, and the knowledge of this flashed through Marcos' mind as
+he fell. He struck one of the white stones that mark the boundary of the
+road, and heard his collar-bone snap like a dry stick. Then he rolled
+over the edge of the precipice into the blackness filled by the roar of
+the river.
+
+He still had one hand whole and ready, though the skin was scraped from
+it, and the fingers of this hand were firmly twisted into the bridle. He
+hung for a moment jerked hither and thither by the efforts of the horse
+to pick himself up on the road above. A stronger jerk lifted him to the
+edge of the road, and Marcos, hanging there for an instant, found an
+insecure foothold for one foot in the root of an overhanging bush. But
+the horse was nearer to the edge now; he was half over and might fall at
+any moment.
+
+It flashed through Marcos' mind that he must live at all costs. There was
+no one to care for Juanita in the troubled times that were coming.
+Juanita was his only thought. And he fought for his life with skill and
+that quickness of perception which is the real secret of success in human
+affairs.
+
+He jerked on the bridle with all the strength of his iron muscle; jerked
+himself up on the road and the horse over into the gorge. As the horse
+fell it lashed out wildly; its hind foot touched the back of Marcos' head
+and seemed almost to break his spine.
+
+He rolled over on his side, choking. He did not lose consciousness at
+once, but knew that oblivion was coming. Perro, the dog, had been
+excitedly skirmishing round, keeping clear of the horse's heels and doing
+little else. He now looked over after the horse and Marcos saw his lean
+body outlined against the sky. He had let the reins go and found that he
+was grasping a stone in his bleeding fingers instead. He threw the stone
+at Perro and hit him. The surprised yelp was the last sound he heard as
+the night of unconsciousness closed over him.
+
+Juanita had gone to bed very tired. She slept the profound sleep of youth
+and physical fatigue for an hour. In the ordinary way she would have
+slept thus all night. But at midnight she found herself wide-awake again.
+The first fatigue of the body was past, and the busy mind asserted its
+rights again. She was not conscious of having anything to think about.
+But the moment she was half awake the thoughts leapt into her mind and
+awoke her completely.
+
+She remembered again the startling silence of Torre Garda, which was in
+some degree intensified by the low voice of the river. She lifted her
+head to listen and caught her breath at the instant realisation of the
+sound quite near at hand. It was the patter of feet on the terrace below
+her window. Perro had returned. Marcos must therefore be back again. She
+dropped her head sleepily on the pillow, expecting to hear some sound in
+the house indicative of Marcos' return, but not intending to lie awake to
+listen for it.
+
+She did not fall asleep again, however, and Perro continued to patter
+about on the terrace below as if he were going from window to window
+seeking an entrance. Juanita began to listen to his movements, expecting
+him to whimper, and in a few moments he fulfilled her anticipation by
+giving a little uneasy sound between his teeth. In a moment Juanita was
+out of bed and at the open window. Perro would awake Sarrion and Marcos,
+who must be very tired. It was a woman's instinct. Juanita was growing
+up.
+
+Perro heard her, and in obedience to her whispered injunction stood
+still, looking up at her and wagging his uncouth tail slowly. But he gave
+forth the uneasy sound again between his teeth.
+
+Juanita went back into her room; found her slippers and dressing-gown.
+But she did not light a candle. She had acquired a certain familiarity
+with the night from Marcos, and it seemed natural at Torre Garda to fall
+into the habits of those who lived there. She went the whole length of
+the balcony to Marcos' room, which was at the other end of the house,
+while Perro conscientiously kept pace with her on the terrace below.
+
+Marcos' window was shut, which meant that he was not there. When he was
+at home his window stood open by night or day, winter or summer.
+
+Juanita returned to Sarrion's room, which was next to her own. The window
+was ajar. The Spaniards have the habit of the open air more than any
+other nation of Europe. She pushed the window open.
+
+"Uncle Ramon," she whispered. But Sarrion was asleep. She went into the
+room, which was large and sparsely furnished, and, finding the bed, shook
+him by the shoulder.
+
+"Uncle Ramon," she said, "Perro has come back ... alone."
+
+"That is nothing," he replied, reassuringly, at once. "Marcos, no doubt,
+sent him home. Go back to bed."
+
+She obeyed him, going slowly back to the open window. But she paused
+there.
+
+"Listen," she said, with an uneasy laugh. "He has something on his mind.
+He is whimpering. That is why I woke you."
+
+"He often whimpers when Marcos is away. Tell him to be quiet, and then go
+back to bed," said Sarrion.
+
+She obeyed him, setting the window and the jalousie ajar after her as she
+had found them. But Sarrion did not go to sleep again. He listened for
+some time. Perro was still pattering to and fro on the terrace, giving
+from time to time his little plaint of uneasiness between his closed
+teeth.
+
+At length Sarrion rose and struck a light. It was one o'clock. He dressed
+quickly and noiselessly and went down-stairs, candle in hand. The stable
+at Torre Garda stands at the side of the house, a few feet behind it
+against the hillside. In this remote spot, with but one egress to the
+outer world, bolts and locks are not considered a necessity of life.
+Sarrion opened the door of the house where the grooms and their families
+lived, and went in.
+
+In a few moments he returned to the stable-yard, accompanied by the man
+who had driven Juanita and Cousin Peligros from Pampeluna a few hours
+earlier. Together they got out the same carriage and a pair of horses. By
+the light of a stable lantern they adjusted the harness. Then Sarrion
+returned to the house for his cloak and hat. He brought with him Marcos'
+rifle which stood in a rack in the hall and laid it on the seat of the
+carriage. The man was already on the box, yawning audibly and without
+restraint.
+
+As Sarrion seated himself in the carriage he glanced upwards. Juanita was
+standing on the balcony, at the corner by Marcos' window, looking down at
+him, watching him silently. Perro was already out of the gate in the
+darkness, leading the way.
+
+They were not long absent. Perro was no genius, but what he did know, he
+knew thoroughly, which for practical purposes is almost as good. He led
+them to the spot little more than three miles down the valley, where
+Marcos lay at the side of the road, which is white and dusty. It was
+quite easy to perceive the dark form lying there, and Perro's lean limbs
+shaking over it.
+
+When the carriage returned Juanita was standing at the open door. She had
+lighted the lamp in the hall and carried in her hand a lantern which she
+must have found in the kitchen. But she had awakened none of the
+servants, and was alone, still in her dressing-gown, with her dark hair
+flying in the breeze.
+
+She came forward to the carriage and held up the lantern.
+
+"Is he dead?" she asked quietly.
+
+Sarrion did not answer at once. He was sitting in one corner of the
+carriage, with Marcos' head and shoulders resting on his knees.
+
+"I do not know how badly he is hurt," he answered at length. "We called
+at the chemist's as we came through the village and awoke him. He has
+been an army servant and is as good as a doctor--"
+
+"If the Seńorita will hold the horses," interrupted the coachman, pushing
+Juanita gently aside, "we will carry him up-stairs."
+
+And something in the man's manner made her think that Marcos was dead.
+She was compelled to wait there at least ten minutes, holding the horses.
+When at length he returned she did not wait to ask questions, but left
+him and ran up-stairs.
+
+In Marcos' room she found Sarrion lighting a lamp. Marcos had been laid
+on the bed. She glanced at him, holding her lower lip between her teeth.
+His face was covered with dust and blood. One blood-stained hand lay
+across his chest, the other was stretched by his side, unnaturally
+straight.
+
+Sarrion looked up at her and was about to speak when she forestalled him.
+
+"It is no good telling me to go away," she said, "because I won't."
+
+Then she turned to get a sponge and water. Sarrion was already busy at
+Marcos' collar, which he had unbuttoned. Suddenly he changed his mind and
+turned away.
+
+"Undo his collar," he said. "I will go down-stairs and get some warm
+water."
+
+
+He took the candle and left Juanita alone with Marcos. She did as she was
+told and bent over him. Her fingers had caught in a string fastened round
+Marcos' neck. She brought the lamp nearer. It was her own wedding ring,
+which she had returned to him after so brief a use of it through the bars
+of the little window looking on to the Calle de la Dormitaleria at
+Pampeluna.
+
+She tried to undo the knot, but failed to do so. She turned quickly, and
+took the scissors from the dressing-table and cut the cord, which was a
+piece of old fishing-line, frayed and worn by friction against the rocks
+of the river. Juanita hastily thrust the cord into her pocket and drew
+the ring less quickly on to that finger for which it had been destined.
+
+When Sarrion returned to the room a minute later she was carefully and
+slowly cutting the sleeve of the injured arm.
+
+"Do you know, Uncle Ramon," she said cheerfully, "I am sure--I am
+positively certain he will recover, poor old Marcos."
+
+Sarrion glanced at her sharply, as if he had detected a new note in her
+voice. And his eye fell on her left hand. He made no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+AN ACCIDENT
+Marcos recovered consciousness at daybreak. It was a sign of his great
+strength and perfect health that he regained all his faculties at once.
+He moved, opened his eyes, and was fully conscious, like a child
+awakening from sleep. As soon as his eyes were open they showed surprise;
+for Juanita was sitting beside him, watching him.
+
+"Ah!" she said, and rose at once to give him some medicine that stood
+ready in a glass. She glanced at the clock as she did so. The room had
+been rearranged. It was orderly and simple like a hospital ward.
+
+"Do not try to lift your head," she said. "I will do that for you."
+
+She did it with skill and laid him back again with a gay laugh.
+
+"There," she said. "There is one thing, and one only, that they teach in
+covents."
+
+As she spoke she turned to write on a sheet of paper the exact hour and
+minute at which he recovered consciousness. For her knowledge was fresh
+enough in her mind to be half mechanical in its result.
+
+"Will that drug make me sleep?" asked Marcos, alertly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How soon?"
+
+"That depends upon how stale the little apothecary's stock-in-trade may
+be," answered Juanita. "Probably a quarter of an hour. He is a queer
+little man and unwashed. But he set your collar-bone like an angel. You
+have to do nothing but keep quiet. I fancy you will have to be content
+with a quiet seat in the background for some weeks, amigo mio."
+
+She busied herself as she spoke, with some duties of a sick-nurse which
+had been postponed during his unconsciousness.
+
+"It is nearly six o'clock," she said, without appearing to look in his
+direction. "So you need not try to peep round the corner at the clock.
+Please do not manage things, Marcos. It is I who am manager of this
+affair. You and Uncle Ramon think that I am a child. I am not. I have
+grown up--in a night, like a mushroom, and Uncle Ramon has been sent to
+bed."
+
+She came and sat down at the bedside again.
+
+"And Cousin Peligros has not been disturbed. She has not left her room.
+She will tell us to-morrow morning that she scarcely slept at all. A real
+lady never sleeps well, you know. She must have heard us but she did not
+come out of her room. For which we may thank the Saints. There are some
+people one would rather not have in an emergency. In fact, when you come
+to think of it--how many are there in the world whose presence would be
+of the slightest use in a crisis--one or two at the most."
+
+She held up her finger to emphasise the smallness of this number, and
+withdrew it again, hastily. But she was not quick enough, for Marcos had
+seen the ring and his eyes suddenly brightened. She turned away towards
+the window, holding her lip between her teeth, as if she had committed an
+indiscretion. She had been talking against time slowly and continuously
+to prevent his talking or thinking, to give the apothecary's soothing
+drug time to take effect. For the little man of medicine had spoken very
+clearly of concussion and its after-effects. He had posted off to
+Pampeluna to fetch a doctor from there, leaving instructions that should
+Marcos recover his reason he should not be permitted to make use of it.
+
+And here in a moment, was Marcos fully in possession of his senses and
+making a use of them, which Juanita resented without knowing why.
+
+"I must see my father," he said, stirring the bedclothes, "before I go to
+sleep again."
+
+Juanita turned on her heel, but did not approach him or seek to rearrange
+the sheets.
+
+"Lie still," she said. "Why do you want to see him? Is it about the war?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Juanita reflected for a moment.
+
+"Then you had better see him," she said conclusively. "I will go and
+fetch him."
+
+She went to the window and passed out on to the balcony. Sarrion had, in
+obedience to her wishes, gone to his room. He was now sitting on a long
+chair on the balcony, apparently watching the dawn.
+
+"Of what are you thinking as you sit there watching the new light in the
+mountains?" she asked gaily.
+
+He looked at her with a softness in the eyes which usually expressed a
+tolerant cynicism.
+
+"Of you," he answered. "I heard the murmur of your voices. You need not
+tell me that he has recovered consciousness."
+
+"He wants to see you," she said. "I think he was surprised not to see
+you--to see only me--when he regained his senses."
+
+There was the faintest suspicion of resentment in her voice.
+
+"But I thought that the apothecary said that he was to be kept absolutely
+quiet," said Sarrion, rising.
+
+"So he did. But he is only a man, you know, just like you and Marcos--and
+he doesn't understand."
+
+"Oh!" said Sarrion meekly, as he followed her. She led the way into
+Marcos' room. She was as fresh and rosy as the morning itself, with the
+delicate pink and white of the convent still in her cheeks. It was on
+Sarrion's face that the night's work had left its mark.
+
+"Here he is," she said. "He was not asleep. Is it a secret? I suppose it
+is--you have so many, you two."
+
+She laughed, and looked from one to the other. But neither answered her.
+
+"Shall I go away, Marcos?" she asked abruptly, turning towards the bed,
+as if she knew at all events that from him she would get a plain answer.
+And it came, uncompromisingly.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+She went to the door with a curt laugh and closed it behind her, with
+decision. Sarrion looked after her with a sudden frown. He looked for an
+instant as if he were about to suggest that Marcos might have made a
+different reply, and then decided to hold his peace. He was perhaps wise
+in his generation. Politeness never yet won a woman's love.
+
+Marcos had noted Juanita's lightness of heart. On recovering his senses
+the first use he had made of them was to observe her every glance and
+silence. There was no sign of present anxiety or of great emotion. The
+incident of the ring had no other meaning therefore, than a girlish love
+of novelty or a taste not hitherto made manifest, for personal ornament.
+It might have deceived any one less observant than Marcos; less in the
+habit of watching Nature and dumb animals. He was patient, however, and
+industrious in the collection of evidence against himself. And she had
+startled him by saying that she was grown-up; though he perceived soon
+after, that it was only a manner of speaking; for she was still careless
+and happy, without a thought of the future, as children are.
+
+These things, however, he kept to himself. He had not sent for his father
+to talk to him of Juanita. Men never discuss a woman in whom they are
+really interested, though fools do.
+
+"That horse didn't fall," said Marcos to his father. "He was thrown.
+There was a wire across the road."
+
+"There was none when I got there," replied Sarrion.
+
+"Then it had been removed. I saw it as we fell. My foot caught in it or I
+could have thrown myself clear in the usual way."
+
+Sarrion reflected a moment.
+
+"Let me look at the note that Zeneta wrote you," he said.
+
+"You will find it in my pocket, hanging behind the door. I was a fool. I
+was in too great a hurry. Now that I think of it, Zeneta would not have
+written a note like that."
+
+"Then he never wrote it at all," said Sarrion, who had found the paper
+and was reading it near the window. The clear morning light brought out
+the wrinkles and the crow's-feet with inexorable distinctness on his keen
+narrow face.
+
+"What does it mean?" he asked at length, folding the letter and replacing
+it in the pocket from which he had taken it.
+
+Marcos roused himself with an effort. He was sleepy.
+
+"I think it means that Evasio Mon is about," he answered.
+
+"No man in the valley would have done it," suggested Sarrion.
+
+"If any man in the valley had done it he would have put his knife into me
+when I lay on the road, which would have been murder."
+
+He gave a short laugh and was silent.
+
+"And the hand inside the velvet glove does not risk murder," reflected
+Sarrion, "They have not given up the game yet. We must be careful of
+ourselves."
+
+"And of Juanita."
+
+"I count her as one of ourselves," replied Sarrion quickly, for he heard
+her voice in the passage. With a brief tap on the door she came in. She
+was struggling with Perro.
+
+"You have had long enough for your secrets," she said. "And now Marcos
+must go to sleep. I have brought Perro to see him. He is so uneasy in his
+canine mind."
+
+Perro, low-born and eager, needed restraint to keep him from the bed
+where his master lay, and Juanita continued to hold him while she spoke.
+
+"You must remember," she said, "that it is owing to Perro that you are
+here at all. If he had not come back and awakened us all you would have
+been on the road still."
+
+Sarrion glanced sharply at her, his attention caught by her version of
+that which had really happened. She did not want Marcos to know that it
+was she who had heard Perro; she, who had insisted that something had
+happened to Marcos.
+
+"And some Jesuit coming along the road might have found you there," she
+said, "and pushed you over. It would have been so easy."
+
+Marcos and Sarrion glanced at each other, and possibly Juanita saw the
+glance as she held Perro back from his master.
+
+"You do not know, Marcos, how they hate you. They could not hate you more
+if you were a heretic. I have always known it, because Father Muro was
+always trying to find things out about you in confession. He asked
+questions about you--who your confessor was; if you did a pilgrimage. I
+said--be quiet, Perro!--I said you never did a pilgrimage, and you were
+always changing your confessor because no holy father could stand the
+strain for long."
+
+She forcibly ejected Perro from the room, and came back breathless and
+laughing. "She has not a care in the world," thought Marcos, who knew
+well enough the danger that he had passed through.
+
+"But Father Muro is such an innocent old love," she went on, "that he did
+it badly. He had been told to do it by the Jesuits and he made a bungle
+of it. He thought that he could make a schoolgirl answer a question if
+she did not want to. And no one was afraid of him. He is a dear, good,
+old saint, and will assuredly go to Heaven. He is not a Jesuit, you know,
+but he is afraid of them, as everybody else is, I think--" She paused and
+closed the shutters to soften the growing day.
+
+"Except Marcos," she threw back over her shoulder towards the bed, with
+some far-off suggestion of anger still in her voice.
+
+"And now he must be allowed to sleep until the doctor comes from
+Pampeluna," she concluded.
+
+She left the room as she spoke to warn the servants, who were already
+astir, to do their work as noiselessly as possible. When she returned
+Marcos was asleep.
+
+"The doctor cannot be here for another hour, at least," whispered
+Sarrion, who was standing by the window watching Marcos. "It is too far
+for a man of his age to ride, and he has no carriage. There may be some
+delay in finding one to do so great a distance at this time in the
+morning. You must take the opportunity to get some sleep."
+
+But Juanita only shook her head and laughed.
+
+Sarrion did not persuade her, but turned to quit the room. His hand was
+on the door when some one tapped on the other side of it. It was Marcos'
+servant.
+
+"The doctor, Excellency," he announced briefly.
+
+In the passage stood a man of middle height, hard and wiry, with those
+lines in his face that time neither obliterates nor deepens; the
+parallels of hunger. He had been through the first Carlist war nearly
+thirty years earlier. He had starved in Pampeluna, the hungry, the
+impregnable.
+
+Sarrion shook hands with him and passed into the room.
+
+"Ah!" he said, in the quiet voice of one who is accustomed to speak in
+the presence of sleep, when he saw Juanita, "Ah--you!"
+
+"Yes," said Juanita.
+
+"So you are nursing your husband," he murmured abstractedly, as he bent
+over the bed.
+
+And Juanita made no answer.
+
+"How long has he been asleep?" he asked, after a few moments, and in
+reply received the written paper which he read quickly, with a practised
+eye, and laid it aside.
+
+"We must wait," he said, turning to Sarrion, "until he awakes. But it is
+all right. I can see that while he sleeps. He is a strong man; none
+stronger in all Navarre."
+
+As he spoke, he was examining the bottles left by the village apothecary,
+tasting one, smelling another. He nodded approval. In medicine, as in
+war, one expert may know unerringly what another will do. Then he looked
+round the room, which was orderly as a hospital ward.
+
+"One sees," he said, "that he has a nun to care for him."
+
+He smiled faintly, so that his features fell into the lines that hunger
+draws. But Juanita looked at him with grave eyes and did not answer to
+his pleasantry.
+
+Then he turned to Sarrion.
+
+"It was only by the kindness of a mere acquaintance," he said, "that I
+was enabled to get here so soon. My own horses were tired out with a hard
+day yesterday, and I was going out to seek others in Pampeluna--no easy
+task on market-day--when I met a travelling carriage on the Plaza de la
+Constitution Its owner must have divined my haste, for he offered
+assistance, and on hearing my story, and whither I was bound, he gave up
+his intended journey, decided to remain a few days longer in Pampeluna
+and placed his carriage at my disposal. I hardly know the man at
+all--though he tells me that he is an old friend of yours. He lives in
+Saragossa."
+
+"Ah!" said Sarrion, who was listening with rather marked attention.
+
+Juanita had moved away, but she was standing now, listening also, looking
+back over her shoulder with waiting eyes.
+
+"It was the Senior Evasio Mon," said the doctor. And in the silence that
+followed, Marcos stirred in his sleep, as if he, too, had heard the name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+KIND INQUIRIES
+For the next fortnight Juanita remained in supreme command at Torre
+Garda, exercising that rule which she said she had acquired at the
+convent school. It had, in reality, come to her straight from Heaven, as
+it comes to all women. Is it not part of the gentler soul to care for the
+helpless and the sick? Just as it is in a man's heart to fight the world
+for a woman's sake.
+
+Marcos made a quick recovery. His broken bones knit together like the
+snapped branch of a young tree. His cuts and bruises healed themselves
+unaided.
+
+"He has no nerves," said Juanita. "You should see a nun when she is ill!
+St. Luke and all the saints have their hands full, I can tell you."
+
+With returning health came energy. Indeed, the patient had never lost his
+grip of the world. Many from the valley came to make inquiry. Some left a
+message of condolence. Some departed with a grunt, indicative of
+satisfaction. A few of the more cultivated gave their names to the
+servant as they drank a glass of red wine in the kitchen.
+
+"Say it was Pedro from the mill."
+
+"Tell him that Three Fingered Thomas passed by," muttered another,
+grudgingly.
+
+"It is I, so-called Short Knife, who came to ask," explained a third,
+tapping the sheath of his baptismal weapon.
+
+"How far have you come?" asked Juanita, who found these gentlemen
+entertaining.
+
+"Seventeen miles from the mountain," was the reply.
+
+"All your friends are calling to inquire after your health," said Juanita
+to Marcos. "They are famous brigands, and make one think fondly of the
+Guardia Civile. There are not many razors in the valley, and I am sure
+there is no soap."
+
+"They are honest enough, though their appearance may be disquieting."
+
+"Oh! I am not afraid of them," answered Juanita, with a shrewd and mystic
+smile. "It is Cousin Peligros who fears them. She scolded me for speaking
+to one of them on the verandah. It undermines the pedestal upon which a
+lady should always stand. Am I on a pedestal, Marcos?"
+
+She looked back at him over her shoulder, through the fold of her
+mantilla. It was an opportunity, perhaps, which a skillful lover would
+have seized. Marcos was silent for a moment. Then he spoke in a repressed
+voice.
+
+"If they come again," he said, "I should like to see them."
+
+But Juanita had already put into the apothecary's lips a command that no
+visitors should be admitted.
+
+She kept this up for some days, but was at length forced to give way.
+Marcos was so obviously on the high road to recovery. There was no
+suggestion of an after-effect of the slight concussion of the brain which
+had rendered him insensible.
+
+It was Short Knife who first gained admittance to the sick-room. He was
+quite a simple person, smelling of sheep, and endowed with a tact which
+is as common among the peasantry as amid the great. There was no sign of
+embarrassment in his manner, and he omitted to remove his beret from his
+close-cropped head until he saw Juanita whom he saluted curtly, replacing
+his cap with a calm unconsciousness before he nodded to Marcos.
+
+"It was you I heard singing the Basque songs as I climbed the hill," he
+said, addressing Juanita first with the instinct of a gentleman. "You
+speak Basque?"
+
+"I understand it, at all events, though I cannot speak it as well as
+Marcos."
+
+"Oh, he!" said the man, glancing towards the bed. "He is one of us--one
+of us. Do you know the song that the women of the valley sing to their
+babies? I cannot sing to you for I have no voice except for the goats.
+They are not particular, the goats--they like music. They stand round me
+and listen. But if you are passing in the mountain my wife will sing it
+to you--she knows it well. We have many round the table--God be thanked.
+It makes them sleep when they are contrary. It tells how easy it is to
+kill a Frenchman."
+
+Then, having observed the conventionalities, he turned eagerly to Marcos.
+
+Juanita listened to them for a short time while they spoke together in
+the Basque tongue. Then she went to the balcony and stood there, leaning
+her arms on the iron rail, looking out over the valley with thoughtful
+eyes. She had seen clearly a hundred devices to relieve her of her watch
+at the bedside. Marcos made excuses for her to absent herself. He found
+occupations for her elsewhere. With his returning strength came anxiety
+that she should lead her own life--apart from him.
+
+"You need not try to get rid of me," she said to him one day. "And I do
+not want to go for a walk with Cousin Peligros. She thinks only of her
+shoes and her clothes while she walks. I would go for a walk with Perro
+if I went with any one. He has a better understanding of what God made
+the world for than Cousin Peligros. But I am not going to walk with any
+one, thank you."
+
+Nevertheless she absented herself. And Marcos' attempts to find
+diversions for her, ceased with a suspicious suddenness. She fell into
+the habit of using the drawing-room which was immediately beneath the
+sick-room, and spent much of her time at the piano there.
+
+"It keeps Marcos quiet," she explained airily to Sarrion, and vouchsafed
+nothing further on the subject.
+
+Chiefly because the music of Handel and Beethoven alone had been
+encouraged by her professors, Juanita had learnt with some enthusiasm the
+folk songs of the Basques, considered worthy only of the attention of the
+people. She had a pretty voice, round and young with strange low notes in
+it that seemed to belong not to her but to some woman who had yet to live
+and suffer, or, perhaps, be happy as some few are in this uneven world.
+She had caught, moreover, the trick of slurring from one note to the
+other, which must assuredly have been left in Spain by the Moors. It
+comes from the Far East. It was probably characteristic of those songs
+that they could not sing by the waters of Babylon, when they hanged their
+harps upon a tree in the strange land. For it gives to songs, sad or gay,
+the minor, low clear note of exile. It rings out unexpectedly in strange
+places. The boatmen of the Malabar Coast face the surf singing no other
+than the refrain that the Basque women murmur over the cradle. "It keeps
+Marcos quiet," said Juanita.
+
+"I suppose," she suggested to Marcos one day when she returned to his
+room and found him quiet, "that when you are well enough to ride you will
+begin your journeys up and down the valley."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And your endless watch over the Carlists?"
+
+"They are making good use of their time, I hear," replied Marcos, with
+the grave appreciation of a good fighter for a worthy foe.
+
+Juanita remembered this now as she stood on the balcony. For he of the
+Short Knife and Marcos were talking politics--those rough and ready
+politics of the valley of the Wolf, which dealt but little in words and
+very considerably in deeds of a bloody nature.
+
+She could hear Marcos talking of the near future when he should be in the
+saddle again. And her eyes grew gloomy and dark with those velvet depths
+that lie in hazel eyes when they are grave. Her kingdom was slipping away
+from her.
+
+She was standing thus when the sound of a horse's feet caught her
+attention. A horseman was coming up the slope from the village to the
+castle of Torre Garda.
+
+She looked at him with eyes that had been trained by Marcos in the
+holiday times to see great distances in the mountains. Then she turned
+and reentered the sick man's room.
+
+"There is another visitor coming to make inquiry into your welfare--it is
+Senor Mon."
+
+And she looked for the gleam that immediately lighted Marcos' dark eyes.
+
+Sarrion was out. He had ridden to a distant hamlet earlier in the day.
+The tidings of this journey might well have reached Evasio Mon's ears.
+Cousin Peligros was taking the siesta by which she sought to forestall a
+possible fatigue later in the day. There are some people who seem to have
+the misfortune to be absent on the rare occasions when they are wanted.
+
+"He is not coming into this room," said Juanita, coolly. "I will go down
+and see him."
+
+Evasio Mon greeted her with a gay smile.
+
+"I am so glad," he said, "to hear that all goes well with Marcos. We
+heard of his accident at Pampeluna. I had a day of leisure so I rode out
+to pay my respects."
+
+He glanced at her, but did not specify whether he had come to pay his
+respects to her as a bride or to Marcos as an invalid.
+
+"It is a long way to come for a mere politeness," replied Juanita, who
+could meet smile with smile if need be. But the eyes before which Evasio
+Mon turned aside were grave enough.
+
+"It is not a mere politeness," he answered. "I have known Marcos since he
+was a child; and have watched his progress in the world--not always with
+a light heart."
+
+"That is kind of you," replied Juanita. "But why watch him if it gives
+you pain?"
+
+Mon laughed. He was quick to see a joke and Juanita, he knew, was a gay
+soul.
+
+"One cannot help taking an interest in one's friends and is naturally
+sorry to see them drifting..."
+
+"Into what...?" asked Juanita turning to the table where a servant had
+placed coffee for the visitor.
+
+"Politics."
+
+"Are politics a crime?"
+
+"They lead to many--but do not let us talk of them--" he broke off with a
+light gesture dismissing as it were an unpleasant topic. "Since you are
+happy," he concluded, looking at her with benevolent eyes.
+
+He was a man of quick gesture and slow precise speech. He always seemed
+to mean much more than was conveyed by the mere words he enunciated.
+Juanita looked quickly at him. What did he know of her happiness? Was she
+happy--when she came to think of it? She remembered her gloomy thoughts
+of a few minutes earlier on the balcony. When we are young we confound
+thoughts with facts. When the heart is young it makes for itself a new
+heaven and a new earth from a word, a glance, a silence. It is a
+different earth from this one, but who can tell that it is not the same
+heaven as that for which men look?
+
+Marcos was talking politics in the room overhead, forgetting her perhaps
+by now. Evasio Mon's suggestion had come at an opportune moment.
+
+"Leon is much exercised on your account," said Mon, quietly, as if he had
+divined her thoughts. It was unlike Leon, perhaps, to be exercised about
+anything but his own soul; for he was a very devout man. But Juanita was
+not likely to pause and reflect on that point.
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+"He naturally dislikes the idea of your being dragged into politics,"
+answered Mon, gently.
+
+"I? Why should I be dragged into politics?"
+
+Mon made a deprecatory gesture. It seemed that he found himself drawn
+again to speak of a subject that was distasteful to him. Then he shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"Well," he said, half to himself, "we live in a practical age. Let us be
+practical. But he would have preferred that you should marry for love.
+Come, let us change the subject, my child. How is Sarrion? In good
+health, I hope."
+
+"It is very kind of Leon to exercise his mind on my account," said
+Juanita steadily. "But I can manage my own affairs."
+
+"Those are my own words," answered Mon soothingly. "I said to him:
+'Juanita is no longer a child; Marcos is honest, he will not have
+deceived her; he must have told her that such a marriage is a mere
+question of politics; that there is no thought of love.'"
+
+He glanced sharply at her. It was almost prophetic; for Marcos had used
+the very words. It is not difficult to be prophetic if one can sink self
+sufficiently to cloak one's thoughts with the mind of another and thus
+divine the workings of his brain. Juanita remembered that Marcos had told
+her that this was a matter of politics. Mon was only guessing; but he
+guessed right. The greatest men the world has produced only guessed after
+all; but they did not guess wrong.
+
+"Such a fortune as yours," he said, with an easy laugh, "would make or
+mar any cause you see. Your fortune is perhaps your misfortune--who
+knows?"
+
+Juanita laughed also, as at a pleasant conceit. The wit that had baffled
+Father Muro was ready for Evasio Mon. A woman will take her stand before
+her own heart and defy the world. Juanita's eyes flashed across the man's
+gentle face.
+
+"But," she said, "if the fortune is my own; if I prefer that Marcos
+should have it--to the church?"
+
+Evasio Mon smiled gently.
+
+"Of course," he murmured. "That is what I said to Leon, and to Sor Teresa
+also, who naturally is troubled about you. Though there are other
+alternatives. Neither Marcos nor the Church need have it. You could have
+it yourself as your father, my old and dear friend, intended it."
+
+"How could I have it myself?" asked Juanita, whose curiosity was aroused.
+
+Mon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The Pope could annul such a marriage as yours by a stroke of the pen if
+he wished." He paused, looking at her beneath his light lashes. "And I am
+told he does wish it. What the Pope wishes--well, one must try to be a
+good Catholic if one can."
+
+Juanita smiled. She did not perhaps consider herself called upon to admit
+the infallibility of his Holiness in matters of the heart. She knew
+better than the Pope. Mon saw that he had struck a false note.
+
+"I am a sentimentalist myself," he said, with a frank laugh. "I should
+like every girl to marry for love. I should like love to be treated as
+something sacred--not as a joke. But I am getting to be an old man,
+Juanita. I am behind the times. Do I hear Sarrion in the passage?"
+
+He rose as he spoke and went towards the door. Sarrion came in at that
+moment. The Spanish sense of hospitality is strongly Arabic. Mon had
+ridden many miles. Sarrion greeted him almost eagerly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE STORMY PETREL
+As Juanita quitted the room she heard Sarrion ask Evasio Mon if he had
+lunched. And Mon admitted that he had as yet omitted that meal. Juanita
+shrugged her shoulders. It is only in later life that we come to realise
+the importance of meals. If Mon was hungry he should have said so. She
+gave no further thought to him. She hated him. She was glad to think that
+he should have suffered, even if his pain was only hunger. What was
+hunger, she asked herself, compared with a broken heart? One was a
+passing pang that could be alleviated, could be confessed to the first
+comer, while a broken heart must be hidden at any cost from all the
+world.
+
+She met Cousin Peligros coming towards the drawing-room in her best black
+silk dress, and in what might have been called a fluster of excitement at
+the thought of a visitor, if such a word had been applicable to her
+placid life of self-deception. Juanita made some small jest and laughed
+rather eagerly at it as she passed the pattern lady on the stairs.
+
+She was very calm and collected; being a determined person, as many
+seemingly gay and light-hearted people are. She was going to leave Torre
+Garda and Marcos, who had married her for her money. It is characteristic
+of determined people that they are restricted in their foresight. They
+look in front with eyes so steady and concentrated that they perceive no
+side issues, but only the one path that they intend to tread. Juanita was
+going back to Pampeluna, to Sor Teresa at the convent school in the Calle
+de la Dormitaleria. She recked nothing of the Carlists, of the disturbed
+country through which she had to pass.
+
+She had never lacked money, and had sufficient now for her needs. The
+village of Torre Garda could assuredly provide a carriage for the
+journey; or, at the worst, a cart. Anything would be better than
+remaining in this house--even the hated school in the Calle de la
+Dormitaleria. She had always known that Sor Teresa was her friend, though
+the Sister Superior's manner of indicating friendship had not been
+invariably comprehensible.
+
+Juanita took a cloak and what money she could find. She was not a very
+tidy person, and the money had to be collected from odd trinket-boxes and
+discarded purses. Marcos was still talking politics with his friend from
+the mountains when she passed beneath his window. Sarrion and Evasio Mon
+had gone to the dining-room, where, it was to be presumed, Cousin
+Peligros had followed them. She professed a great admiration for Evasio
+Mon, who was on familiar terms with people of the highest distinction. An
+hour's start would be sufficient. In that time she could be half-way to
+Pampeluna. Secrecy was of course out of the question.
+
+The drawing-room window was open. Juanita paused on the threshold for a
+moment. Then she went into the room and scribbled a hurried note--not
+innocent of blots--which she addressed to Marcos. She left it on the
+writing-table and carrying her cloak over her arm she hurried down a
+zigzag path concealed in a thicket of scrub-oak to the village of Torre
+Garda.
+
+Before reaching the village she overtook a traveling-carriage going at a
+walking pace down the hill. The carriage, which was old-fashioned in
+build, and set high upon its narrow wheels, was empty.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Juanita, of the man who took off his hat to
+her, almost as if he had expected her.
+
+"I am returning to Pampeluna, empty, Excellency," he answered. "I have
+brought the baggage of Seńor Mon, who is traveling over the mountains on
+horseback. I am hoping to get a fare from Torre Garda back to Pampeluna,
+if I have the good fortune."
+
+The coincidence was rather startling. Juanita had always been considered
+a lucky girl, however; one for whom the smaller chances of daily
+existence were invariably kind. She accepted this as another instance of
+the indulgence of fate in small things. She was not particularly glad or
+surprised. A dull indifference had come over her. The small things of
+daily life had never engrossed her mind. She was quite indifferent to
+them now. It was her intention to get to Pampeluna, through all
+difficulties, and the incidents of the road occupied no place in her
+thoughts. She was vaguely confident that no one could absolutely stand in
+her way. Had not Evasio Mon said that the Pope would willingly annul her
+marriage?
+
+She was thinking these thoughts as she drove through the little mountain
+village.
+
+"What is that--it sounds like thunder or guns?" inquired Evasio Mon,
+pausing in his late and simple luncheon in the dining-room.
+
+"A clerical ear like yours should not know the sound of guns," replied
+Sarrion with a curt laugh. "It is not that, however. It is a cart or a
+carriage crossing the bridge below the village."
+
+Mon nodded his head and continued to give his attention to his plate.
+
+"Juanita looks well--and happy," he said, after a pause.
+
+Sarrion looked at him and made no reply. He was borrowing from the absent
+Marcos a trick of silence which he knew to be effective in a subtle war
+of words.
+
+"Do you not think so?"
+
+"I am sure of it, Evasio."
+
+Sarrion was wondering why he had come to Torre Garda--this stormy petrel
+of clerical politics--whose coming never boded good. Mon was much too
+wise to be audacious for audacity's sake. He was not a theatrical man,
+but one who had worked consistently and steadily for a cause all through
+his life. He was too much in earnest to consider effect or heed danger.
+
+"I am not on the winning side, but I am sure that I am on the right one,"
+he had once said in public. And the speech went the round of Spain.
+
+After he had finished luncheon he spoke of taking his leave, and asked if
+he might be allowed to congratulate Marcos on his escape.
+
+"It should be a warning to him," he went on, "not to ride at night. To do
+so is to court mishap in these narrow mountain roads."
+
+"Yes," said Sarrion, slowly.
+
+"Will his nurse allow me to see him?" asked the visitor.
+
+"His nurse is Juanita. I will go and ask her," replied Sarrion, looking
+round him quite openly to make sure that there were no letters lying
+about on the tables of the terrace that Mon might be tempted to read in
+his absence.
+
+He hurried to Marcos' room. Marcos was out of bed. He was dressing, with
+the help of his servant and the visitor from the mountains. With a quick
+gesture, Marcos indicated the open window, through which the sound of any
+exclamation might easily reach the ear of Evasio Mon.
+
+"Juanita has gone," he said, in French. "Read that note. It is his doing,
+of course."
+
+"I know now," wrote Juanita, "why you were afraid of my growing up. But I
+am grown up--and I have found out why you married me."
+
+"I knew it would come sooner or later," said Marcos, who winced as he
+drew his sleeve over his injured arm. He was very quiet and collected, as
+people usually are in face of a long anticipated danger which when it
+comes at last brings with it a dull sense of relief.
+
+Sarrion made no reply. Perhaps he, too, had anticipated this moment. A
+girl is a closed book. Neither knew what might be written in the hidden
+pages of Juanita's heart.
+
+A crisis usually serves to accentuate the weakness or strength of a man's
+character. Marcos was intensely practical at this moment--more practical
+than ever. He had only one thought--the thought that filled his
+life--which was Juanita's welfare. If he could not make her happy he
+could, at all events, shield her from harm. He could stand between her
+and the world.
+
+"She can only have gone down the valley," he said, continuing to speak in
+French, which was a second mother tongue to him. "She must have gone to
+Sor Teresa. He has induced her to go by some trick. He would not dare to
+send her anywhere else."
+
+"I heard a carriage cross the bridge," replied Sarrion. "He heard it
+also, and asked what it was. The next moment he spoke of Juanita. The
+sound must have put the thought of Juanita into his mind."
+
+"Which means that he provided the carriage. He must have had it waiting
+in the village. Whatever he may undertake is always perfectly organised;
+we know that. How long ago was that?"
+
+"An hour ago and more."
+
+Marcos nodded and glanced at the clock.
+
+"He will no doubt have made arrangements for her to get safely through to
+Pampeluna."
+
+"Then where are you going?" asked Sarrion, perceiving that Marcos was
+slipping into his pocket the arm without which he never traveled in the
+mountains.
+
+"After her," was the reply.
+
+"To bring her back?"
+
+"No."
+
+Marcos paused for a moment, looking from the window across the valley to
+the pine-clad heights with thoughtful eyes. He held odd views--now deemed
+chivalrous and old-fashioned--on the question of a woman's liberty to
+seek her own happiness in her own way. Such views are unnecessary to-day
+when woman is, so to speak, up and fighting. They belong to the days of
+our grandmothers, who had less knowledge and much more wisdom; for they
+knew that it is always more profitable to receive a gift than demand a
+right. The measure will be fuller.
+
+"No. Not unless it is her own wish," he said.
+
+Sarrion made no answer. In human difficulties there is usually nothing to
+be said. There is nearly always one clear course to steer and the
+deviations are only found by too much talk and too much licence given to
+crooked minds. If happiness is not to be found in the straight way
+nothing is gained by turning into by-paths to seek it. A few find it and
+a great number are not unhappy who have seen it down a side-path and have
+yet held their course in the straight way.
+
+"Will you keep him in the library--make the excuse that the sun is too
+hot on the verandah--until I am gone?" said Marcos. "I will follow and,
+at all events, see that she arrives safely at Pampeluna."
+
+Sarrion gave a curt laugh.
+
+"We may be able," he said, "to turn to good account Evasio's conviction
+that you are ill in bed, when in reality you are in the saddle."
+
+"He will soon find out."
+
+"Of course--but in the meantime..."
+
+"Yes," said Marcos with a slow smile ... "in the meantime." He left the
+room as he spoke, but turned on the threshold to look back over his
+shoulder. His eyes were alight with anger and the smile had lapsed into a
+grin.
+
+Sarrion went down to the verandah to entertain the unsought guest.
+
+"They have given us coffee," he said, "in the library. It is too hot in
+the sun, although we are still in March! Will you come?"
+
+"And what has Juanita decreed?" asked Mon, when they were seated and
+Sarrion had lighted his cigarette.
+
+"The verdict has gone against you," replied Sarrion. "Juanita has decreed
+most emphatically that you are not to be allowed to see Marcos."
+
+Mon laughed and spread out his hands with a characteristic gesture of
+bland acceptance of the inevitable. The man, it seemed, was a
+philosopher; a person, that is to say, who will play to the end a game
+which he knows he cannot win.
+
+"Aha!" he laughed. "So we arrive at the point where a woman holds the
+casting vote. It is the point to which all men travel. They have always
+held the casting vote--ces dames--and we can only bow to the inevitable.
+And Juanita is grown up. One sees it. She is beginning to record her
+vote."
+
+"Yes," answered Sarrion with a narrow smile. "She is beginning to record
+her vote."
+
+With a Spanish formality of manner, Sarrion placed his horse at the
+disposition of Evasio Mon, should the traveller feel disposed to pass the
+night at Torre Garda. But Mon declined.
+
+"I am a bird of passage," he explained. "I am due in Pampeluna again
+to-night. I shall enjoy the ride down the valley now that your
+hospitality has so well equipped me for the journey----"
+
+He broke off and looked towards the open window, listening.
+
+Sarrion had also been listening. He had heard the thud of Marcos' horse
+as it passed across the wooden bridge below the village.
+
+"Guns again?" he suggested, with a short laugh.
+
+"I certainly heard something," Mon answered. And rising briskly from his
+chair, he went to the window. Sarrion followed him, and they stood side
+by side looking out over the valley. At that moment that which was more
+of a vibration than a sound came to their ears across the mountains--deep
+and foreboding.
+
+"I thought I was right," said Mon, in little more than a whisper. "The
+Carlists are abroad, my friend, and I, who am a man of peace must get
+within the city walls."
+
+With an easy laugh he said good-bye. In a few minutes he was in the
+saddle riding leisurely down the valley of the Wolf after Juanita--with
+Marcos de Sarrion in between them on the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+WAR'S ALARM
+Juanita's carriage emerged from the valley of the Wolf into the plain at
+sunset. She could see that the driver paid but little heed to his horses.
+His attention wandered constantly to the mountains. For, instead of
+looking to the road in front, his head was ever to the right, and his
+eyes searched the plain and the bare brown hills.
+
+At last he pulled up and, turning on his box, held up one finger.
+
+"Listen, Seńorita," he said, and his dark eyes were alight with
+excitement.
+
+Juanita stood up and listened, looking westward as he did. The sound was
+like the sound of thunder, but shorter and sharper.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"The Carlists--the sons of dogs!" he answered, with a laugh, and he
+shook his whip towards the mountains. "See," he said, gathering up the
+reins again, "that dust on the road to the west--that is the troops
+marching out from Pampeluna. We are in it again--in it again!"
+
+At the gate of the city there was a crowd of people. The carriage had to
+stand aside against the trees to let pass the guns which clattered down
+the slope. The men were laughing and shouting to each other. The
+officers, erect on their horses, seemed to think only of the safety of
+the guns as a woman entering a ballroom reviews her jewelery with a quick
+comprehensive glance.
+
+At the guard-house, beneath the second gateway, there occurred another
+delay. The driver was a Pampeluna man and well-known to the sentries. But
+they did not recognise his passenger and sent for the officer on duty.
+
+"The Seńorita Juanita de Mogente," he muttered, as he came into the
+road--a stout and grizzled warrior smoking a cigarette. "Ah, yes!" he
+said, with a grave bow at the carriage door. "I remember you as a
+schoolgirl. I remember now. Forgive the delay and pass in--Seńora de
+Sarrion."
+
+Juanita was ushered into the little bare waiting-room in the convent
+school of the Sisters of the True Faith in the Calle de la Dormitaleria.
+It is a small, square apartment at the end of a long and dark passage.
+The day filters dimly into it through a barred window no larger than a
+pocket-handkerchief. Juanita stood on tiptoe and looked into a narrow
+alley. On the sill of this window Marcos had stood to wrench apart the
+bars of the window immediately overhead, through which he had lifted her
+one cold night--years and years ago, it seemed.
+
+Nothing had changed in this gloomy house.
+
+"The dear Sister Superior is at prayer in the chapel," the doorkeeper had
+whispered. The usual formula; for a nun must always be given the benefit
+of the doubt. If she is alone in her cell or in the chapel it is always
+piously assumed that she is at prayer. Juanita smiled at the familiar
+words.
+
+"Then I will wait," she said, "but not very long."
+
+She gave the nun a familiar little nod of warning as if to intimate that
+no tricks of the trade need be tried upon her.
+
+She stood alone in the little gray, dim room now, and waited with
+brooding eyes. Within, all was quiet with that air of awesome mystery
+peculiar to the cloister, which so soon gives place with increasing
+familiarity, to a sense of deadly monotony. It is only from outside that
+the mystery of the cloister continues to interest. Juanita knew every
+stone in this silent house. Its daily round of artificial duties appeared
+small to her eyes.
+
+"They have nothing to do all day in a nunnery," she once said to Marcos
+in jest. "So they rise up very early in the morning to do it."
+
+She had laughed on first seeing the mark of Marcos' heel on the
+window-sill. She turned and looked at it again now--without laughing. And
+she thought of Torre Garda with its keen air, cool to the cheek like
+spring water; with the scent of the bracken that she loved; with the
+tall, still pines, upright against the sky, motionless, whispering with
+the wind.
+
+She had always thought that the cloister represented safety and peace in
+a world of strife. And now that she was back within the walls she felt
+that it was better to be in the world, to take part in the strife, if
+necessary; for Heaven had given her a proud and a fierce heart. She would
+rather be miserable here all her life than go back to Marcos, who had
+dared to marry her without loving her.
+
+The door of the waiting-room opened and Sor Teresa stood on the
+threshold.
+
+"I have come back," said Juanita. "I think I shall go into religion. I
+have left Torre Garda."
+
+She gave a short laugh and looked curiously at Sor Teresa--impassive in
+her straight-hanging robes.
+
+"So you have got me back," she said. "Back to the convent."
+
+"Not to this convent," replied Sor Teresa, quietly.
+
+"But I have come back. I shall come back--the Mother Superior..."
+
+"The Mother Superior is in Saragossa. I am mistress here," replied Sor
+Teresa, standing still and dark, like one of the pines at Torre Garda.
+The Sarrion blood was rising to her pale cheek. Her eyes glowed darkly
+beneath her overshadowing head-dress. Command--that indefinable spirit
+which is vouchsafed to gentle people, while rough and strong men miss
+it--was written in every line of her face, every fold of her dress, in
+the quiet of her small, white hands, resting motionless against her
+skirt.
+
+Juanita stood looking at her with flashing eyes, with her head thrown
+back, with clenched hands,
+
+"Then I will go somewhere else. But I do not understand you. You always
+wanted me to go into religion."
+
+Sor Teresa held up one hand and cut short her speech. For the habit of
+obedience is so strong that clear-headed men will deliberately go to
+their death rather than relinquish it. The gesture was known to Juanita.
+It was dreaded in the school.
+
+"Think--" said Sor Teresa. "Think before you say that."
+
+"Well," argued Juanita, "if you did not urge me in words, you used every
+means in your power to induce me to take the veil--to make it impossible
+for me to do anything else."
+
+"Think!" urged Sor Teresa. "Think again. Do not include me in such
+generalities without thinking."
+
+Juanita paused. She ran back in her mind over a hundred incidents of
+school life, remembered, as such are, with photographic accuracy.
+
+"Well," she admitted at length. "You did your best to make me hate it--at
+all events."
+
+"Ah!" said Sor Teresa, with a slow smile.
+
+"Then you did not want me to go into religion--" Juanita came a step
+nearer and peered into Sor Teresa's face. She might as well have sought
+an answer in a face of stone.
+
+"Answer me," she said impatiently.
+
+"All are not suited for the religious life," answered the Sister Superior
+after the manner of her teaching. "I have known many such, and I have
+seen much sorrow arising from a mistaken sense of duty. I have heard of
+lives wrecked by it--I have known of two."
+
+Juanita who had moved away impatiently, now turned and looked at Sor
+Teresa. The gloom of evening was gathering in the little bare room. The
+stillness of the convent was oppressive.
+
+"Were you suited to the religious life?" asked the girl suddenly.
+
+But Sor Teresa made no answer.
+
+Juanita sat suddenly down. Her movements were quick and impulsive still,
+as they had been when she was a schoolgirl. When she had arrived at the
+convent she had felt hungry and tired. The feelings came back to her with
+renewed intensity now. She was sick at heart. The gray twilight within
+these walls was like the gloom of a hopeless life.
+
+"I wonder who the other was," she said, half to herself. For the world
+was opening out before her like a great book hitherto closed. The lives
+of men and women had gained depth and meaning in a flash of thought.
+
+She rose and impulsively kissed Sor Teresa.
+
+"I used to be afraid of you," she said, with a laugh which seemed to
+surprise her, as if the voice that had spoken was not her own. Then she
+sat down again. It was almost dark in the room now, and the window
+glimmered a forlorn gray.
+
+"I am so hungry and tired," said Juanita in rather a faint voice, "but I
+am glad I came. I could not stay in Torre Garda another hour. Marcos
+married me for my money. The money was wanted for political purposes.
+They could not get it without me--so I was thrown in."
+
+She dropped her two hands heavily on the table and looked up as if
+expecting some exclamation of surprise or horror. But her hearer made no
+sign.
+
+"Did you know this?" she asked, in an altered voice after a pause. "Are
+you in the plot, too, as well as Marcos and Uncle Ramon? Have you been
+scheming all this time as well, that I should marry Marcos?"
+
+"Since you ask me," said Sor Teresa, slowly and coldly, "I think you
+would be happier married to Marcos than in religion. It is only my
+opinion, of course, and you must decide for yourself. It is probably the
+opinion of others, however, as well. There are plenty of girls who ..."
+
+"Oh! are there?" cried Juanita, passionately. "Who--I should like to
+know?"
+
+"I am only speaking in generalities, my child."
+
+Juanita looked at her suspiciously, her April eyes glittering with a new
+light.
+
+"I thought you meant Milagros. He once said that he thought her pretty,
+and liked her hair. It is red, everybody knows that. Besides, we are
+married."
+
+She dropped her tired head upon her folded arms--a schoolgirl attitude
+which returned naturally to her amid the old surroundings.
+
+"I don't care what becomes of me," she said wearily. "I don't know what
+to do. It is very hard that papa should be dead and Leon ... Leon such a
+preposterous stupid. You know he is."
+
+Sor Teresa did not deny this sisterly truth; but stood motionless,
+waiting for Juanita's decision.
+
+"I am so hungry and tired," she said at length. "I suppose I can have
+something to eat ... if I pay for it."
+
+"Yes; you can have something to eat."
+
+"And I may be allowed to stay here to-night, at all events."
+
+"No, you cannot do that," answered the Sister Superior.
+
+Juanita looked up in surprise.
+
+"Then what am I to do? Where am I to go?"
+
+"Back to your husband," was the reply in the same gentle, inexorable
+voice. "I will take you back to Marcos--that is all I will do for you. I
+will take you myself."
+
+Juanita laughed scornfully and shook her head. She had plenty of that
+spirit which will fight to the end and overcome fatigue and hunger.
+
+"You may be mistress here," she said. "But I do not think you can deny me
+a lodging. You cannot turn me out into the street."
+
+"Under exceptional circumstances I can do both."
+
+"Ah!" muttered Juanita, incredulously.
+
+"And those circumstances have arisen. There, you can satisfy yourself."
+
+She laid before Juanita, on the bare table, a paper which it was not
+possible to read in the semi-darkness. She turned to the mantelpiece,
+where two tall candles added to the sacerdotal simplicity of the room.
+While the sulphur match burnt blue, Juanita looked indifferently at the
+printed paper.
+
+"It is a siege notice," said Sor Teresa, seeing that her hearer refused
+to read. "It is signed by General Pacheco, who arrived here with a large
+army to-day. It is expected that Pampeluna may be besieged by to-morrow
+evening. The investment may be a long one, which will mean starvation.
+Every householder must make a return of those dwelling under his roof. He
+must refuse domicile to any strangers; and I refuse to take you into this
+house."
+
+Juanita read the paper now by the light of the candles which Sor Teresa
+set on the table. It was a curt, military document without explanation or
+unnecessary mitigation of the truth. For Pampeluna had seen the like
+before and understood this business thoroughly.
+
+"You can think about it," said Sor Teresa, folding the paper and placing
+it in her pocket. "I will send you something to eat and drink in this
+room."
+
+She closed the door, leaving Juanita to realise the grim fact that--shape
+our lives how we will, with all foresight--every care--the history of the
+world or of a nation will suddenly break into the story of the single
+life and march over it with a giant stride.
+
+Presently a lay-sister brought refreshments and set the tray on the table
+without speaking. Juanita knew her well--and she, doubtless, knew
+Juanita's story; for her pious face was drawn into lines indicative of
+the deepest disapproval.
+
+Juanita ate heartily enough, not noticing the cold simplicity of the
+fare. She had finished before Sor Teresa returned and without thinking of
+what she was doing, had rearranged the tray after the manner of the
+refectory. She was standing by the window which she had opened. The
+sounds of war came into the room with startling distinctness. The boom of
+the distant guns disputing the advance of the Carlists; while nearer, the
+bugles called the men to arms and the heavy tramp of feet came and went
+in the Calle de la Dormitaleria.
+
+"Well," asked Sor Teresa. "What have you decided to do?"
+
+Juanita listened to the alarm of war for a moment before turning from the
+window.
+
+"It is not a false alarm?" she inquired. "The Carlists are really out?"
+
+For she had fallen into the habit of the Northern Provinces, of speaking
+of the insurrection as if it were a recurrent flood.
+
+"They have been preparing all the winter," answered Sor Teresa.
+
+"And Pampeluna is to be invested?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And Torre Garda?..."
+
+"Torre Garda," answered the nun, "is to be taken this time. The Carlists
+have decided to besiege it. It is at the mouth of the valley that the
+fighting is taking place."
+
+"Then I will go back to Torre Garda," said Juanita.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AT THE FORD
+"They will allow two nuns to pass anywhere," said Sor Teresa with her
+chilling smile as she led the way to her own cell in the corridor
+overhead. She provided Juanita with that dress which is a passport
+through any quarter of a town, across any frontier; to any battlefield.
+So Juanita took the veil at last--in order to return to Marcos.
+
+Sor Teresa's words proved true enough at the city gates where the
+sentinels recognised her and allowed her carriage to pass across the
+drawbridge by a careless nod of acquiescence to the driver.
+
+It was a clear dark night without a moon. The prevailing wind which
+hurries down from the Pyrenees to the warmer plains of Spain stirred the
+budding leaves of the trees that border the road below the town walls.
+
+"I suppose," said Sor Teresa suddenly, "that Evasio Mon was at Torre
+Garda to-day."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you left him there when you came away."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"We shall meet him on the road," said Sor Teresa with a note of anxiety
+in her voice. Presently she stood up in the carriage which was an open
+one on high wheels and spoke to the driver in a low voice into his ear.
+He was a stout and respectable man with a good ecclesiastical clientčle
+in the pious capital of Navarre. He had a confidential manner.
+
+The distant firing had ceased now and a great stillness reigned over the
+bare land. There are no trees here to harbour birds or to rustle in the
+wind. The man, nursing his horses for the long journey, drove at an easy
+pace. Juanita, usually voluble enough, seemed to have nothing to say to
+Sor Teresa. The driver could possibly overhear the conversation of his
+passengers. For this, or for another reason, Sor Teresa was silent.
+
+As they approached the hills, they found themselves in a more broken
+country. They climbed and descended with a rather irritating regularity.
+The spurs of the Pyrenees keep their form right down to the plains and
+the road to Torre Garda passes over them. Juanita leant sideways out of
+the carnage and stared upwards into the pine trees.
+
+"Do you see anything?" asked Sor Teresa.
+
+"No--I can see nothing."
+
+"There is a chapel up there, on the slope."
+
+"Our Lady of the Shadows," answered Juanita and lapsed into silence
+again. She knew now why the name had struck her with such foreboding,
+when she had learnt it from the lips of the laughing young captain of
+infantry.
+
+It told of calamity--the greatest that can happen to a woman--to be
+married without love.
+
+The driver turned in his seat and tried to overhear. He seemed uneasy and
+looked about him with quick turns of the head. At last, when his horses
+were mounting a hill, he turned round.
+
+"Did these sainted ladies hear anything?" he asked.
+
+"No," answered Sor Teresa. "Why do you ask?"
+
+"There has been a man on horseback on the road behind us," he answered
+with assumed carelessness, "all the way from Pampeluna. He has now taken
+a short cut and is in front on the road above us; I can hear him; that is
+all."
+
+And he gave a little cry to his horses; the signal for them to trot. They
+were approaching the mouth of the Valley of the Wolf, and could hear the
+sound of its wild waters in the darkness below them. The valley opens out
+like a fan with either slope rising at an easy angle to the pine woods.
+The road is a cornice cut on the western bank upon which side it runs for
+ten miles until the bridge below the village of Torre Garda leads it
+across the river to the sunny slope where the village crouches below the
+ancient castle from which the name is taken.
+
+The horses were going at a walking pace now, and the driver to show,
+perhaps, his nonchalance and fearlessness was humming a song beneath his
+breath, when suddenly the hillside burst into flame and a deafening roar
+of musketry stunned both horses and driver. Juanita happened to be
+looking up at the hillside and she saw the fire run along like a snake of
+flame in the grass. In a moment the carriage had swung round and the
+horses were going at a gallop down the hill again. The driver stood up.
+He had a rein in either hand and he hauled the horses round each
+successive corner with consummate skill. All the while he used language
+which would have huddled Cousin Peligros shrieking in the bottom of the
+carriage.
+
+Juanita and Sor Teresa stood up and looked back. By the light of the
+firing they saw a man lying low on his horse's neck galloping headlong
+through the zone of death after them.
+
+"Did you hear the bullets?" said Juanita breathlessly. "They were like
+the wind through the telegraph-wires. Oh, I should like to be a man; I
+should like to be a soldier!"
+
+And she gave a low laugh of thrilling excitement.
+
+The driver was now pulling up his horses. He too laughed aloud.
+
+"It is the troops," he cried. "They thought we were the Carlists. But,
+who is this, Seńoras? It is that man again."
+
+He leant back and hastily twisted one of the carriage-lamps round in its
+socket so as to show a light behind him towards the newcomer.
+
+As the rider pulled up he came within the rays of the lamp which was a
+powerful one; and at the sight of him Juanita gave a sharp cry which
+neither she nor any that heard it forgot to the end of their lives.
+
+"It is Marcos," she cried, clutching Sor Teresa's arm. "And he came
+through that--he came through that!"
+
+"No one hurt?" asked Marcos' deep voice.
+
+"No one hurt, Seńor," answered the driver who had recognised him.
+
+"And the horses?"
+
+"The horses are safe. A malediction upon them; they nearly had us over
+the cliff. Those are the troops. They took us for Carlists."
+
+"No," said Marcos. "They are the Carlists. The troops have been driven
+farther up the valley where they are entrenched. They have sent to
+Pampeluna for help. This is a Carlist trap to catch the reinforcements as
+they approach. They thought your carriage was a gun."
+
+The driver scratched his head and made known his views as to the
+ancestory of the Carlists.
+
+"There is no getting into the valley to-night," said Marcos to Sor Teresa
+and Juanita. "You must return to Pampeluna."
+
+"And what will you do?" asked Juanita in a hard voice.
+
+"I will go on to Torre Garda on foot," answered Marcos speaking in French
+so that the driver should not hear and understand. "There is a way over
+the mountains which is known to two or three only."
+
+"Uncle Ramon is at Torre Garda?" asked Juanita in the same curt, quick
+way.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I will go with you," she said with her hand already on the door.
+
+"It is sixteen miles," said Marcos, "over the high mountains. The last
+part can only be done by daylight. I shall be in the mountains all
+night."
+
+Juanita had opened the door. She stood on the step looking up at him as
+he sat on the tall black horse,
+
+"If you will take me," she said in French, "I will come with you."
+
+Sor Teresa was silent still. She had not spoken since Marcos had pulled
+up his sweating horse in the lamplight. What a simple world this would be
+if more of its women knew when to hold their tongues!
+
+Marcos, fresh from a bed of sickness was not fit to undertake this
+journey. He must already be tired out; for she knew that it was Marcos
+who had followed their carriage from Pampeluna. She guessed that finding
+no troops where he expected to find them he had ridden ahead to discover
+the cause of it and had passed unheard through the Carlist ambush and
+back again through the zone of fire. That Juanita could accomplish the
+journey on foot to Torre Garda seemed doubtful. The country was unsafe;
+the snows had hardly melted. It was madness for a wounded man and a girl
+to attempt to reach Torre Garda through a pass held by the enemy. But Sor
+Teresa said nothing.
+
+Marcos sat motionless in the saddle. His face was above the radius of the
+reversed carriage-lamp, while Juanita standing on the dusty road in her
+nun's dress looking up at him, was close to the glaring light. It is to
+be presumed that he was watching her descend from the carriage and then
+turn to shut the door on Sor Teresa. By his silence, Marcos seemed to
+consent to this arrangement.
+
+He came forward into the light now. In his hand he held a paper which he
+was unfolding. Juanita recognised the letter she had written to him in
+the drawing-room at Torre Garda. He tore the blank sheet off and folding
+the letter closely, replaced it in his pocket. Then he laid the blank
+sheet on the dusty splash-board of the carriage and wrote a few words in
+pencil.
+
+"You must get back to Pampeluna," he said to the driver in that tone of
+command which is the only survival of feudal days now left in Europe--and
+even the modern Spaniards are losing it--"at any cost--you understand. If
+you meet the reinforcements on the road give this note to the commanding
+officer. Take no denial; give it into his own hand. If you meet no troops
+go straight to the house of the commandant at Pampeluna and give the
+letter to him. You will see that it is done," he said in a lower voice,
+turning to Sor Teresa.
+
+The man protested that nothing short of death would prevent his carrying
+out the instructions.
+
+"It will be worth your while," said Marcos. "It will be remembered
+afterwards."
+
+He paused deep in thought. There were a hundred things to be considered
+at that moment; quickly and carefully. For he was going into the Valley
+of the Wolf, cut off from all the world by two armies watching each other
+with a deadly hatred.
+
+The quiet voice of Sor Teresa broke the silence, softly taking its place
+in his thoughts. It seemed that the Sarrion brain had the power--the
+secret of so much success in this world--of thrusting forth a sure and
+steady hand to grasp the heart of a question and tear it from the tangle
+of side-issues among which the majority of men and women are condemned to
+flounder.
+
+"Where is Evasio Mon?" she asked.
+
+Marcos answered with a low, contented laugh.
+
+"He is trapped in the valley," he said in French. "I have seen to that."
+
+The firing had ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, and a silence only
+broken by the voice of the river, now hung over the valley.
+
+"Are you ready?" Sor Teresa asked her driver.
+
+"Yes, Excellency."
+
+"Then go."
+
+She may have nodded a farewell to Marcos and Juanita. But that they could
+not see in the blackness of the night. She certainly gave them no spoken
+salutation. The carriage moved away at a sharp trot, leaving Marcos and
+Juanita alone.
+
+"We can ride some distance and must ford the river higher up," said
+Marcos at once. He did not seem to want any explanation. The excitement
+of the moment seemed to have wiped out the events of the last few months
+like writing off a slate. Juanita was young again, ready to throw herself
+headlong into an adventure in the mountains with Marcos such as they had
+had together many times during the holidays. But this was better than the
+dangers of mere snow and ice. For Juanita had tasted that highest of
+emotions, the excitement of battle. She had heard that which some men
+having once heard cannot live without, the siren song of a bullet.
+
+"Are we going nearer to the Carlists?" she asked hurriedly. There was
+fighting blood in her veins, and the tones of her voice told clearly
+enough that it was astir at this moment.
+
+"Yes," answered Marcos. "We must pass underneath them; for the ford is
+there. We must be quite noiseless. We must not even whisper."
+
+He edged his horse towards one of the rough stones laid on the outer edge
+of the road to mark its limit at night.
+
+"I can only give you one hand," he said. "Can you get up from this
+stone?"
+
+"Behind you?" asked Juanita; "as we used to ride when I was--little?"
+
+For Marcos had, like most Spaniards, grown from boyhood to manhood in the
+saddle, and Juanita had no fear of horses. She clambered to the broad
+back of the Moor and settled herself there, sitting pillion fashion and
+holding herself in position with both hands round Marcos.
+
+"If he trots, I fall off," she said, with an eager laugh.
+
+They soon quitted the road and began to descend the steep slope towards
+the river by a narrow path only made visible by the open space in the
+high brushwood. It was the way down to a ford leading to a cottage by
+courtesy called a farm, though the cultivated land was scarcely an acre
+in extent, reclaimed from the river-bed.
+
+The ground was soft and mossy and the roar of the river covered the tread
+of the careful horse. In a few minutes they reached the water's edge, and
+after a moment's hesitation the Moor stepped boldly in. On the other bank
+Marcos whispered to Juanita to drop to the ground.
+
+"The cottage is here," he said. "I shall leave the horse in their shed."
+
+He descended from the saddle and they stood for a moment side by side.
+
+"Let us wait a few moments, the moon is rising," said Marcos. "Perhaps
+the Carlists have been here."
+
+As he spoke the sky grew lighter. In a minute or two a waning moon looked
+out over the sharp outline of hill and flooded the valley with a reddish
+light.
+
+"It is all right," he said; nothing is disturbed here. They are asleep in
+the cottage; the noise of the river must have drowned the firing. They
+are friends of mine; they will give us some food for to-morrow morning
+and another dress for you. You cannot go in that."
+
+"Oh!" laughed Juanita, "I have taken the veil. It is done now and cannot
+be undone."
+
+She raised her hands to the wings of her spreading cap as if to defend it
+against all comers. And Marcos, turning, suddenly threw his uninjured arm
+round her, imprisoning her struggling arms. He held her thus a prisoner
+while with his injured hand he found the strings of the cap. In a moment
+the starched linen fluttered out, fell into the river, and was carried
+swirling away.
+
+Juanita was still laughing, but Marcos did not answer to her gaiety. She
+recollected at that instant having once threatened to dress as a nun in
+order to alarm Marcos, and Sarrion's grave remark that it would of a
+certainty frighten him.
+
+They were silent for a moment. Then Juanita spoke with a sort of forced
+lightness.
+
+"You may have only one arm," she said, "but it is an astonishingly strong
+one!"
+
+And she looked at him surreptitiously beneath her lashes as she stood
+with her hands on her hair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+IN THE CLOUDS
+Marcos tied his horse to a tree and led the way towards the cottage. It
+seemed to be innocent of bars and bolts. The ford, known to so few, and
+the evil name of the Wolf, served instead. The door opened at a push, and
+Marcos went in. A wood-fire smouldered on an open hearth, while the acrid
+smoke half-filled the room, blackened by the fumes of peat and charcoal.
+
+Marcos stood on the threshold and called the owner by name. There was a
+shuffling sound in an inner room and the scraping of a match. A minute
+later a door was opened and an old woman stood in the aperture, fully
+dressed and carrying a lamp above her head.
+
+"Ah!" she said. "It is you. I thought it was the voice of a friend. And
+you have your pretty wife there. What are you doing abroad at this hour
+... the Carlists?"
+
+"Yes," answered Marcos, rather quickly, "the Carlists. We cannot pass by
+the road, so have sent the carriage back and are going across the
+mountains."
+
+The woman held up her hands and shook them from side to side in a gesture
+of horror.
+
+"Ah! but there!" she cried, "I know what you are. There is no turning
+your back on your road. If you say you will go--you will go though it
+rain rocks. But this child--ah, dear, dear! You do not know what you have
+married--with your bright eyes. Sit down, my child. I will get you what I
+can. Some coffee. I am alone in the house. All my men have gone to the
+high valley, now that the snow is gone, to collect wood and to see what
+the winter has done for our hut up in the mountain."
+
+Marcos thanked her, and explained that they wanted nothing but a roof
+under which to leave his horse.
+
+"We are going up to the higher valley to-night," he said, "where we shall
+find your husband and sons. And at daylight we must hurry on to Torre
+Garda. But I want to borrow a dress and handkerchief belonging to one of
+your daughters. See, the Seńora cannot walk in that one, which is too
+fine and too long."
+
+"Oh, but my daughters ..." exclaimed the old woman, with deprecating
+hands.
+
+"They are very pretty girls," answered Marcos, with a laugh. "All the
+valley knows that."
+
+"They are not bad," admitted the mother, "but it is a flower compared to
+a cabbage. Still, we can hide the flower in the cabbage leaves if you
+like."
+
+And she laughed heartily at her own conceit.
+
+"Then see to it while I put my horse away," said Marcos. He quitted the
+hut and overheard the woman pointing out to Juanita that she had lost her
+mantilla coming through the trees in the dark. While he attended to his
+horse he could hear their laughter and gay conversation over the change
+of clothes; for Juanita understood these people as well as he did, and
+had grown through childhood to the age of thought in their midst. The
+peasant was still pressing a simple hospitality upon Juanita when Marcos
+returned to the cottage and found her ready for the journey.
+
+"I was telling the Seńora," explained the woman volubly, "that she must
+not so much as look inside the cottage in the mountains. I have not been
+there for six months and the men--you know what they are. They are no
+better than dogs I tell them. There is plenty of clean hay and dry
+bracken in the sheds up there and you can well make a soft bed for her to
+get some sleep for a few hours. And here I have unfolded a new blanket
+for the lady. See, it is white as I bought it. She can use it. It has
+never been worn--by us others," she added with perfect simplicity.
+
+Marcos took the blanket while Juanita explained that having slept soundly
+every night of her life without exception, she could well now accommodate
+herself with a rest of two hours in the hay. The woman pressed upon them
+some of her small store of coffee and some new bread.
+
+"He can well prepare your breakfast for you," she said, confidentially to
+Juanita. "He is like one of us. All the valley will tell you that. A
+great gentleman who can yet cook his own breakfast--as the good God meant
+them to be."
+
+They set forth at once in the yellow light of the waning moon, Marcos
+leading the way up a pathway hardly discernible amid the rocks and
+undergrowth. Once or twice he turned to help Juanita over a hard or a
+dangerous place. But they did not talk, as conversation was not only
+difficult but inexpedient. They had climbed for two hours, slowly and
+steadily, when the barking of a dog on the mountainside above them
+notified them that they were nearing their destination.
+
+"Who is it?" asked a voice presently.
+
+"Marcos de Sarrion," replied Marcos. "Strike no lights."
+
+"We have no candles up here," answered the man with a laugh. He only
+spoke Basque and it was in this language that Marcos gave a brief
+explanation. Juanita sat on a rock. She was tired out. There were three
+men--short, thick-set and silent, a father and two sons. They stood in
+front of Marcos and spoke in monosyllables after the manner of old
+friends. Under his directions they brought a heap of dried bracken and
+hay. In a shed, little more than a roof and four uprights, they made a
+rough couch for Juanita which they hedged round with heaps of bracken to
+protect her from the wind.
+
+"You will see the stars," said the old man shaking out the blanket which
+Marcos had carried up from the cottage at the ford. "It is good to see
+the stars when you awake in the night. One remembers that the saints are
+watching."
+
+In a few minutes Juanita was sleeping, like a child, curled up beneath
+her blanket, and heard through her dreams the low voices of Marcos and
+the peasants talking hurriedly in the half-ruined cottage. For Marcos and
+these three were the only men who knew the way over the mountains to
+Torre Garda.
+
+The dawn was just breaking when Marcos awoke Juanita.
+
+"Oh," she said plaintively. "I have only been asleep ten minutes."
+
+"You have slept three hours," replied Marcos in that hushed voice in
+which it seems natural to speak before the dawn. "I am making
+coffee--come when you are ready."
+
+Juanita found a pail of water and a piece of last year's yellow soap
+which had been carefully scraped clean with a knife. A clean towel had
+also been provided. Juanita noted the manly simplicity of these
+attentions with a little tender and wise smile.
+
+"I know what it is that makes men gipsies," she said, when she joined
+Marcos who was attending to a fire of sticks on the ground at the cottage
+door. "I shall always have a kindly feeling for them now. They get
+something straight from heaven which is never known to people who sleep
+in stuffy houses and get up to wash in warm water."
+
+She gave a little shiver at the recollection of her ablutions, and
+laughed a clear, low laugh, as fresh as the morning itself.
+
+"Where are the men?" she asked.
+
+"One has gone to Pampeluna, one has taken a note to the officer
+commanding the reinforcements sent for by Zeneta. The third has gone down
+to fetch his mother up here to bake bread all day. There will be a little
+army here to-night."
+
+Juanita stood watching Marcos who seemed entirely absorbed in blowing up
+the fire with a pair of dilapidated bellows.
+
+"I suppose," she said lightly, "that it was of these things that you were
+thinking when you were so silent as we climbed up here last night."
+
+"I suppose so," answered Marcos.
+
+Juanita looked at him with a little frown as if she did not quite believe
+him. The day had now come and a pink light suffused the topmost peaks. A
+faint warmth spread itself like a caress across the valley and turned the
+cold air into a pearly mist.
+
+"Of what are you thinking?" asked Marcos suddenly; for Juanita had stood
+motionless, watching him.
+
+"I was thinking what a comfort it is that you are not an indoor man," she
+replied with a careless laugh.
+
+The peasants had brought their cows to the high pastures. So there was
+plenty of milk in the cottage which was little more than a dairy; for it
+had no furniture beyond a few straw mattresses thrown on the floor in one
+corner. Marcos served breakfast.
+
+"Pedro particularly told me to see that you had the cup which has a
+handle," he said, pouring the coffee from a battered coffee-pot. During
+their simple breakfast they were silent. There was a subtle constraint.
+Juanita who had a quick and direct mind, decided that the moment had come
+for that explanation for which Marcos did not ask. An explanation does
+not improve by keeping. They were alone here--alone in the world it
+seemed--for the cows had strayed away. The dogs had gone to the valley
+with their masters. She and Marcos had always known each other. She knew
+his every thought; she was not afraid of him; she never had been. Why
+should she be now?
+
+"Marcos," she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I want you to give me the letter I wrote to you at Torre Garda."
+
+He felt in his pocket and handed her the first paper he found without
+particularly looking at it. Juanita unfolded it. It was the note, all
+crumpled, which she had thrust through the wall of the convent school at
+Saragossa. She had forgotten it, but Marcos had kept it all this time.
+
+"That is the wrong one," she said gravely, and handed it back to Marcos,
+who took it with a little jerk of the head as of annoyance at his own
+stupidity. He was usually very accurate in details. He gave her in
+exchange the right paper, which had been torn in two. The other half is
+in the military despatch office in Madrid to-day. Juanita had arranged in
+her own mind what to say. She was quite mistress of the situation, and
+was ready to move serenely and surely in her own sphere, taking the lead
+in such subtle matters with the capability and mastery which
+characterised Marcos' lead in affairs of action. But Marcos' mistake
+seemed to have put out her prearranged scheme.
+
+She slowly tore the letter into pieces and threw it on the fire.
+
+"Do you know why I came back?" she asked, which question can hardly have
+formed part of the plan of action.
+
+"No."
+
+"Because you never pretended that you cared. If you had pretended that
+you cared for me, I should never have forgiven you."
+
+Marcos did not answer. He looked up slowly, expecting perhaps to find her
+looking elsewhere. But her eyes met his and she shrank back with an
+involuntary movement that seemed to be of fear. Her face flushed all over
+and then the colour faded from it, leaving her white and motionless as
+she sat staring into the flickering wood-fire.
+
+Presently she rose and walked to the edge of the plateau upon which the
+hut was built. She stood there looking across to the mountains.
+
+Marcos busied himself with the simple possessions of his host, setting
+them in order where he had found them and treading out the smouldering
+embers of the fire. Juanita turned and watched him over her shoulder with
+a mystic persistency. Beneath her lashes lurked a smile--triumphant and
+tender.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+LE GANT DE VELOURS
+They accomplished the rest of the journey without accident. The old
+spirit of adventure which had led them to these mountains while they were
+yet children seemed to awaken again, and they were as comrades. But
+Juanita was absent-minded. She was not climbing skilfully. At one place
+far above trees or other vegetation she made a false step and sent a
+great rock rolling down the slope.
+
+"You must be careful," said Marcos, almost sharply. "You are not thinking
+what you are doing."
+
+And Juanita suffered the reproof with an unwonted meekness. She was more
+careful while they passed over a dangerous slope where the snow had
+softened in the morning sun, and came to the topmost valley--an oval
+basin of rocks and snow with no visible outlet. Immediately below them,
+at the foot of a slope, which looked quite feasible, lay huddled the body
+of a man.
+
+"It is a Carlist," explained Marcos. "We heard some time ago that they
+had been trying to find another way over to Torre Garda. That valley is a
+trap. That is not the way to Torre Garda at all; and that slope is solid
+ice. See, his knife lies beside him. He tried to cut steps before he
+died. This is our way."
+
+And he led Juanita rather hastily away. At nine o'clock they passed the
+last shoulder and stood above Torre Garda, and the valley of the Wolf
+lying in the sunlight below them. The road down the valley lay like a
+yellow ribbon stretched across the broad breast of Nature.
+
+Half an hour later they reached the pine woods, and heard Perro barking
+on the terrace. The dog soon came panting to meet them, and not far
+behind him Sarrion, whose face betrayed no surprise at perceiving
+Juanita.
+
+"You would have been safer at Pampeluna," he said with a keen glance into
+her face.
+
+"I am quite safe enough here, thank you," she answered, meeting his eyes
+with a steady smile.
+
+He asked Marcos whether he had felt his wounded shoulder or suffered from
+so much exertion. And Juanita answered more fully than Marcos, giving
+details which she had certainly not learnt from himself. A man having
+once been nursed in sickness by a woman parts with some portion of his
+personal liberty which she never relinquishes.
+
+"It is the result of good nursing," said Sarrion, slipping his hand
+inside Juanita's arm and walking by her side.
+
+"It is the result of his great strength," she answered, with a glance
+towards Marcos, which he did not perceive, for he was looking straight in
+front of him.
+
+"Uncle Ramon," said Juanita, an hour later when they were sitting on the
+terrace together. She turned towards him suddenly with her shrewd little
+smile. "Uncle Ramon--do you ever play Pelota?"
+
+"Every Basque plays Pelota," he replied.
+
+Juanita nodded and lapsed into reflective silence. She seemed to be
+arranging something in her mind. Towards Sarrion, as towards Marcos, she
+assumed at times an attitude of protection, and almost of patronage, as
+if she knew much that was hidden from them and had access to some chamber
+of life of which the door was closed to all men.
+
+"Does it ever strike you," she said at length, "that in a game of
+Pelota--supposing the ball to be endowed with a ... well a certain lower
+form of intelligence, the intelligence of a mere woman, for instance--it
+would be rather natural for it to wonder what on earth the game was
+about? It might even think that it had a certain right to know what was
+happening to it."
+
+"Yes," admitted Sarrion, who having a quick and eager mind, understood
+that Juanita was preparing to speak plainly. And at such times women
+always speak more plainly than men. He lighted a cigarette, threw away
+the match with a little gesture which seemed to indicate that he was
+ready for her--would meet her on her own ground.
+
+"Why did Evasio Mon want me to go into religion?" she asked bluntly.
+
+"My child--you have three million pesetas."
+
+"And if I had gone into religion--and I nearly did--the Church would have
+had them?"
+
+"Pardon me," said Sarrion. "The Jesuits--not the Church. It is not the
+same thing--though the world does not yet understand that. The Jesuits
+would have had the money and they would have spent it in throwing Spain
+into another civil war which would have been a worse war than we have
+seen. The Church--our Church--has enemies. It has Bismarck, and the
+English; but it has no worse enemy than the Jesuits. For they play their
+own game."
+
+"At Pelota! and you and Marcos?"
+
+"We were on the other side," said Sarrion, with a shrug of the shoulders.
+
+"And I have been the ball."
+
+Sarrion glanced at her sideways. This was the moment that Marcos had
+always anticipated. Sarrion wondered why he should have to meet it and
+not Marcos. Juanita sat motionless with steady eyes fixed on the distant
+mountains. He looked at her lips and saw there a faint smile not devoid
+of pity--as if she knew something of which he was ignorant. He pulled
+himself together; for he was a bold man who faced his fences with a
+smile.
+
+"Well," he said, "... since we have won."
+
+"Have you won?"
+
+Sarrion glanced at her again. Why did she not speak plainly, he was
+wondering. In the subtler matters of life, women have a clearer
+comprehension and a plainer speech than men. When they are
+tongue-tied--the reason is a strong one.
+
+"At all events Seńor Mon does not know when he is beaten," said Juanita,
+and the silence that followed was broken by the distant sound of firing.
+They were fighting at the mouth of the valley.
+
+"That is true," admitted Sarrion.
+
+"They say he is trapped in the valley--as we are."
+
+"So I believe."
+
+"Will he come to Torre Garda?"
+
+"As likely as not," answered Sarrion. "He has never lacked audacity."
+
+"If he comes I should like to speak to him," said Juanita.
+
+Sarrion wondered whether she intended to make Evasio Mon understand that
+he was beaten. It was Mon himself who had said that the woman always
+holds the casting vote.
+
+"At all events," said Juanita, who seemed to have returned in her
+thoughts to the question of winning or losing. "At all events, you played
+a bold game."
+
+"That is why we won," said Sarrion, stoutly.
+
+"And you did not heed the risks."
+
+"What risks?"
+
+Juanita turned and looked at him with a little laugh of scorn.
+
+"Oh, you do not understand. Neither does Marcos. I suppose men don't. You
+might have ruined several lives."
+
+"So might Evasio Mon," returned Sarrion sharply. And Juanita rather drew
+back as a fencer may flinch who has been touched.
+
+Sarrion leant back in his chair and threw away the cigarette which he had
+not smoked. Juanita had chosen her own ground and he had met her on it.
+He had answered the question which she was too proud to ask.
+
+And as he had anticipated, Evasio Mon came to Torre Garda. It was almost
+dusk when he arrived. Whether he knew that Marcos was not in his room,
+remained an open question. He did not ask after him. He was brought by
+the servant to the terrace where he found Cousin Peligros and Juanita.
+Sarrion was in his study and came out when Mon passed the open window.
+
+"So we are all besieged," said the visitor, with his tolerant smile as he
+took a chair offered to him in the grand manner by Cousin Peligros, who
+belonged to the school of etiquette that holds it wrong for any lady to
+be natural in the presence of men other than of her own family.
+
+Cousin Peligros smiled in rather a pinched way, and with a gesture of her
+outspread hands morally wiped the besiegers out. No female Sarrion, she
+seemed to imply, need ever fear inconvenience from a person in uniform.
+
+"You and I, Seńorita," said Mon, with his bland and easy sympathy of
+manner, "have no business here. We are persons of peace."
+
+Cousin Peligros made a condescending and yet decisive gesture, patting
+the empty air.
+
+"I have my charge. I shall fulfil it," she said--determined, and not
+without a suggestion of coyness withal.
+
+Juanita was lying in wait for a glance from Sarrion and when she received
+it she made a little movement of the eyelids, telling him to take Cousin
+Peligros away.
+
+"You will stay the night," said Sarrion to Evasio Mon.
+
+"No, my friend. Thank you very much. I cherish a hope of getting through
+the lines to-night to Pampeluna. I came indeed to offer my poor services
+as escort to these ladies who will surely be safer at Pampeluna."
+
+"Then you think that they will besiege Torre Garda," asked Sarrion,
+innocently. "One never knows, my friend--one never knows. It seems to me
+that the firing is nearer this afternoon."
+
+Sarrion laughed.
+
+"You are always hearing guns."
+
+Mon turned and looked at him and there was a suggestion of melancholy in
+his smile.
+
+"Ah! Ramon," he said. "You and I have heard them all our lives."
+
+And there was perhaps a second meaning in his words, known only to
+Sarrion, whose face softened for an instant.
+
+"Let us have some coffee," he said, turning to Cousin Peligros. "Will you
+see to it, Peligros--in the library?"
+
+So Peligros walked across the broad terrace with the mincing steps taught
+in the thirties, leaving Mon hatless with a bowed head according to the
+etiquette of those leisurely days. He was all things, to all men.
+
+"By the way ..." said Sarrion, and followed her without completing his
+sentence.
+
+So Juanita and Evasio Mon were left alone on the terrace. Juanita was
+sitting rather upright in a garden chair. The only seat near to her was
+the easy chair just vacated by Cousin Peligros. Mon looked at it. He
+glanced at Juanita and then drew it forward. She turned, and with a smile
+and gesture invited him to be seated. A watchful look came into Evasio
+Mon's quick eyes behind the glasses that reflected the last rays of the
+setting sun. For the young and the guilty, silence has a special terror.
+Mon had dealt with the young and the guilty all his life. He sat down
+without speaking. He was waiting for Juanita. Juanita moved her toe
+within her neat black slipper, looking at it critically. She was waiting
+for Evasio Mon. He paused as a duellist may pause with his best weapons
+laid out on the table before him, wondering which one to select. Perhaps
+he suspected that Juanita held the keenest; that deadly plain-speaking.
+
+His subtle training had taught him to sink self so completely that it was
+easy to him to insinuate his mind into the thoughts of another; to
+understand them, almost to sympathise with them. But Juanita puzzled him.
+There is no face so baffling as that which a woman shows the world when
+she is hiding her heart.
+
+"I spoke as a friend," said Mon, "when I recommended you to allow me to
+escort you to Pampeluna."
+
+"I know that you always speak as a friend," answered Juanita quietly,
+"... of mine. Not of Marcos, perhaps."
+
+"Ah, but your friends are Marcos'," said Mon, with a suggestion of
+raillery in his voice.
+
+"And his enemies are mine," she retorted, looking straight in front of
+her.
+
+"Of course--is it not written in the marriage service?" Mon laughingly
+turned in his chair and cast a glance up at the windows as he spoke. They
+were beyond earshot of the house. "But why should I be an enemy of Marcos
+de Sarrion?"
+
+Then Juanita unmasked her guns.
+
+"Because he outwitted you and married me," she answered.
+
+"For your money--"
+
+"Yes, for my money. He was quite honest about it, I assure you. He told
+me that it was a matter of business--of politics. That was the word he
+used."
+
+"He told you that?" asked Mon in real surprise.
+
+Juanita nodded her head. She was looking at her own slipper again and the
+moving foot within it. There was a mystic little smile at the corner of
+her lips which tilted upwards there, as humorous and tender lips nearly
+always do. It suggested that she knew something which even Evasio Mon,
+the all-wise, did not know.
+
+"And you believed him?" inquired Mon, dimly groping at the meaning of the
+smile.
+
+"He told me that it was the only way of escaping you ... and the rest of
+them ... and Religion," answered Juanita--without answering the question.
+
+"And you believed him?" repeated Mon, which was a mistake; for she turned
+on him at once and answered,
+
+"Yes."
+
+Mon shrugged his shoulders with the tolerant air of one who has met
+defeat time after time; who expected naught else perhaps.
+
+"Then there is nothing more to be said," he observed carelessly. "You
+elect to remain at Torre Garda. I bow to your decision, my child. I have
+warned you."
+
+"Against Marcos?"
+
+Mon shrugged his shoulders a second time.
+
+"And in reply to your warning," said Juanita slowly. "I will tell you
+that Marcos has never done or said anything unworthy of a Spanish
+gentleman--and there is no better gentleman in the world."
+
+Which statement all men will assuredly be ready to admit.
+
+Mon turned and looked at her with an odd smile.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "You have fallen in love with Marcos."
+
+Juanita changed colour and her eyes suddenly lighted with anger.
+
+"I am not afraid of anything you may say or do," she said. "I have
+Marcos. Marcos has always outwitted you when you have come in contact
+with him. Marcos is cleverer than you. He is stronger."
+
+She paused. Mon was slowly drawing his gloves through his hands which
+were white and smooth.
+
+"That is the difference between you," she continued. "You wear gloves.
+Marcos takes hold of life with his bare hand. You may be more cunning,
+but Marcos outwits you. The mind seeks but the heart finds. Your mind may
+be subtle--but Marcos has a better heart."
+
+Mon had risen. He stood with his face half turned away from her so that
+she could only see his profile. And for a moment she was sorry for him;
+that one moment which always mars an earthly victory.
+
+He turned away from her and walked slowly towards the library window
+which stood open and gave passage to the sound of moving cups and
+saucers. We all carry with us through life the remembrance of certain
+words probably forgotten by the speaker. A few bear the keener, sharper
+memory of words unspoken. Juanita never forgot the silence of Evasio Mon
+as he walked away from her.
+
+A moment later she heard him laughing and talking in the library.
+
+He had come on horseback and Sarrion accompanied him to the stables on
+his departure. They were both young for their years. The Spaniards of the
+north are thin and lithe and long-lived. Sarrion offered his hand for
+Mon's knee, who with this aid sprang into the saddle.
+
+He turned and looked towards the terrace.
+
+"Juanita," he said, and paused. "She is no longer a child. One hopes that
+she may have a happy life ... seeing that so many do not."
+
+Sarrion made no answer.
+
+"We are not weaklings," continued Mon lightly. "You, and Marcos and I. We
+may sweat and toil as we will--but believe me, there is more power in
+Juanita's little finger. It is the casting vote--amigo--the casting
+vote."
+
+He waved a salutation as he rode away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+LA MAIN DE FER
+Juanita was very early astir the next morning. The house was peculiarly
+quiet, but she knew that Marcos, if he had been abroad, had now returned;
+for Perro was lying on the terrace in the sunlight watching the library
+window.
+
+Juanita went to that room and there found Marcos writing letters. A map
+of the Valley of the Wolf lay open on the table beside him.
+
+"You are always writing letters," she said. "You began writing them on
+the splash-board of the carriage at the mouth of the valley and you have
+been doing it ever since."
+
+"They are making use of my knowledge of the valley," he replied. He
+continued his task after a very quick glance up at her. Juanita had found
+out that he rarely looked at her.
+
+"I am not at all tired after our adventure," she said. "I made up last
+night for the want of sleep. Do I look tired?"
+
+"Not at all," answered Marcos, glancing no higher than her waist.
+
+"But I had a dream," she said. "It was so vivid that I am not sure now
+that it was a dream. I am not sure that I did not in reality get out of
+bed quite early in the morning, before daylight, when the moon was just
+touching the mountains, and look out of my window. And the terrace,
+Marcos, was covered with soldiers; rows and rows of them, like shadows.
+And at the end, beneath my window, stood a group of men. Some were
+officers; one looked like General Pacheco, fat with a chuckling laugh;
+another seemed to be Captain Zeneta--the friend who stood by us in the
+chapel of Our Lady of the Shadows--who was saying his prayers, you
+remember. Most young men are too conceited to say their prayers nowadays.
+And there were two civilians, in riding-boots all dusty, who looked
+singularly like you and Uncle Ramon. It was an odd dream, Marcos--was it
+not?"
+
+"Yes," answered he with a laugh. "Do not tell it to the wrong people as
+Joseph did."
+
+"No, your reverence," she said. She stood looking at him with grave eyes.
+
+"Is there going to be a battle?" she asked, curtly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?"
+
+He pointed down into the valley with his pen.
+
+"Just above the bridge if it all comes off as they have planned."
+
+She went out on to the terrace and looked down into the valley, which was
+peaceful enough in the morning light. The thin smoke of the pine
+wood-fires rose from the chimneys in columns of brilliant blue. The sheep
+on the slopes across the valley were calling to their lambs. Then Juanita
+returned to the library window and stood on the threshold, with brooding
+eyes and a bright patch of colour in her cheeks.
+
+"Will you do me a favour?" she asked.
+
+"Of course."
+
+He lifted his pen from the paper, but did not look up.
+
+"If there is a battle--if there is any fighting, will you take great care
+of yourself? It would be so terrible if anything happened to you ... for
+Uncle Ramon I mean."
+
+"Yes," answered Marcos, gravely. "I understand. I promise to take care."
+
+Juanita still lingered at the window.
+
+"And you always keep your promises, don't you? To the letter?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"No, of course not. It is characteristic of you, that is all. Your
+promise is a sort of rock that nothing can move. Women, you know, make a
+promise and then ask to be let off; you would not do that?"
+
+"No," answered Marcos, quite simply.
+
+In Navarre the hours of meals are much the same as those that rule in
+England to-day. At one o'clock luncheon both Marcos and Sarrion were at
+home. The valley seemed quiet enough. The soldiers of Juanita's dream
+seemed to have vanished like the shadows to which she compared them.
+
+"I am sure," said Cousin Peligros, while they were still at the table,
+"that the sound of firing approaches. I have a very delicate hearing. All
+my senses are very highly developed. The sound of the firing is nearer,
+Marcos."
+
+"Zeneta is retreating slowly before the enemy, with his small force,"
+explained Marcos.
+
+"But why is he doing that? He must surely know that there are ladies at
+Torre Garda."
+
+"Ladies are not articles of war," said Juanita with a frivolous disregard
+of Cousin Peligros' reproving face. "And this is war."
+
+As she spoke Marcos rose and quitted the room after glancing at his
+watch. Juanita followed him.
+
+"Marcos," she said, in the hall, having closed the dining-room door
+behind her. "Will you tell me what time it will begin?"
+
+"Zeneta is timed to retreat across the bridge at three o'clock. The enemy
+will, it is hoped, follow him."
+
+"And where will you be?"
+
+"I shall be with Pacheco and his staff on the hill behind Pedro's mill.
+You will see a little flag wherever Pacheco is."
+
+Cousin Peligros' delicate hearing had not been deceived. The firing was
+now close at hand. The valley takes a turn to the left below the ridge
+and upon the hillside above this corner the white irregular line of smoke
+now became visible.
+
+In a few minutes the dark mass of Zeneta's men appeared on the road at
+the corner. He was before his time. The men were running. They raised the
+dust like a troop of sheep and moved in a halo of it. Every hundred yards
+they stopped and fired a volley. They were acting with perfect regularity
+and from a distance looked like toy soldiers. They were retreating in
+good order and the sound of their volleys came at regular intervals. On
+the bridge they halted. They were going to make a stand here, as would
+seem natural. Had they had artillery they could have effectually held
+this strong and narrow place.
+
+It now became apparent that they were a woefully small detachment. They
+could not spare men to take up positions on the rocky hillside behind
+them.
+
+There was a pause. The Carlists were waiting for their skirmishers to
+come in from heights above the road.
+
+Sarrion and Juanita stood at the edge of the terrace. Sarrion was
+watching with a quick and comprehensive glance.
+
+"Is General Pacheco a good general?" asked Juanita.
+
+"Excellent."
+
+Sarrion did not comment further on this successful soldier.
+
+"They played me false," the General had told him indignantly a few hours
+earlier. "They promised me a good sum--yes a sufficient sum. But when the
+time came the money was not forthcoming. An awkward position; but I found
+a way out of it."
+
+"By being loyal," suggested Sarrion with a short laugh and there the
+conversation ceased.
+
+Juanita looked across the valley towards Pedro's mill. There was no flag
+there. All the valley was peaceful enough, giving in the brilliant
+sunshine no glint of sword or bayonet.
+
+On the bridge, the little knot of men awaited the advent of the Carlists
+forming up round the corner. In a moment these came, swarming over the
+road and the hillside. The roadway was packed with them, the rocks and
+the bushes above the river seemed alive with them. They fired
+independently, and the hillside was white in a moment. The royalist
+troops on the bridge fired one volley and then turned. They ran straight
+along the road. Some threw down their knapsacks. One or two stopped,
+seemed to hesitate and then laid them down on the road like a tired
+child. Others limped to the side and sat there.
+
+All the while the Carlists came on. The rear ranks were still coming
+round the corner. The skirmishers were already across the bridge. There
+was only one place for Zeneta's men to run to now--the castle of Torre
+Garda. They were already at the foot of the slope. Juanita and Sarrion
+could distinguish the slim form of their commander walking along the road
+behind his men, sword in hand. Sometimes he ran a few steps, but for the
+most part he walked with long, steady strides, shepherding his men.
+
+They began to climb the slope, and Zeneta took up his position on a rock
+jutting out of the hillside. He stood on tiptoe and watched the bridge.
+The last of the Carlists were on it now. Juanita could see his eager
+face, with intrepid eyes alert, and lips apart, drawn back over his
+teeth. She glanced at Sarrion, whose lips were the same. His eyes
+glittered. He was biting his lower lip.
+
+As the last man ran across the bridge on the heels of his comrades,
+Zeneta looked across the valley towards the water mill. He waved his
+handkerchief high above his head. A little flag fluttered above the trees
+growing round the mill-wheel.
+
+Cousin Peligros being only human now came to the terrace to see what was
+happening. She had taken the precaution of putting on her mittens and
+opening her parasol.
+
+"What is the meaning of this noise?" she asked; but neither Sarrion nor
+Juanita seemed to hear her. They were watching the little flag, which
+seemed to be descending the hill.
+
+So close beneath the house were Zeneta's men now, that those on the
+terrace could hear his voice.
+
+"The bridge," said Sarrion, under his breath. "Look at the bridge!"
+
+It was half hidden in the smoke that still hovered in the air, but
+something was taking place there. Men were running hither and thither.
+The sunlight glittered on uniform and bayonet.
+
+"Guns!" said Sarrion curtly, and as he spoke the whole valley shook
+beneath their feet. A roar seemed to arise from the river and spread all
+up the hills, and simultaneously a cloak of white smoke was laid over the
+green slopes.
+
+Juanita saw Zeneta stand for a moment, with sword upheld, while his men
+gathered round him. Then with a wild shout of exultation he led them down
+the hill again. Before he had run ten paces he fell--his feet seemed to
+slip from under him, and he lay at full length for a moment--then he was
+up again and at the head of his men.
+
+A bullet came singing up over the low brushwood and a distant tinkle of
+falling glass told that it had found its billet in a window. The bushes
+in the garden seemed suddenly alive with rustling life and Sarrion
+dragged Juanita back from the balustrade.
+
+"No--no!" she said angrily.
+
+"Yes--I promised Marcos," answered Sarrion with his arm round her waist.
+
+In a moment they were in the library where they found Cousin Peligros in
+an easy chair with folded hands and the face of a very early Christian
+martyr.
+
+"I have never been treated like this before," she said severely.
+
+Sarrion stood at the window, keeping Juanita in.
+
+"It will be all over in a few minutes," he said. "Holy Virgin! What a
+lesson for them."
+
+The din was terrible. The lady of delicate hearing placed her hands over
+her ears not forgetting to curl her little finger in the manner deemed
+irresistible by her generation. Quite suddenly the firing ceased as if by
+the turning of a tap.
+
+"There," said Sarrion, "it is over. Marcos said they were to be taught a
+lesson. They have learnt it."
+
+He quitted the room taking his hat which he had thrown aside.
+
+Juanita went to the terrace. She could see nothing. The whole valley was
+hidden in smoke which rolled upward in yellow clouds. The air choked her.
+She came back to the library, coughing, and went towards the door.
+
+"Juanita," said Cousin Peligros, "I forbid you to leave the room. I
+absolutely refuse to be left alone."
+
+"Then call your maid," said Juanita, patiently.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I am going to follow Uncle Ramon down to the valley. There must be
+hundreds of wounded. I can do something----"
+
+"Then I forbid you to go. It is permissible for Marcos to identify
+himself with such proceedings--in protection of those whom Providence has
+placed under his care. Indeed I should expect it of him. It is his duty
+to defend Torre Garda."
+
+Juanita looked at the supine form in the easy chair.
+
+"Yes," she answered. "And I am mistress of Torre Garda."
+
+Which, perhaps, had a double meaning, for when she closed the door--not
+without emphasis--Cousin Peligros sat upright with a start.
+
+Juanita hurried out of the house and ran down the road winding on the
+slope to the village. The smoke choked her; the air was impregnated with
+sulphur. It seemed impossible that anybody could have lived through these
+hellish minutes that were passed. In front of her she saw Sarrion
+hurrying in the same direction. A moment later she gave a little cry of
+joy. Marcos was riding up the slope at a gallop. He pulled up when he saw
+his father and by the time he had quitted the saddle, Juanita was with
+him.
+
+Marcos' face was gray beneath the sunburn. His eyes were bloodshot and
+his lips were pressed upward in a line of deadly resolution. It was the
+face of a man who had seen something that he would never forget. He
+looked at his father.
+
+"Evasio Mon," he said.
+
+"Killed?"
+
+Marcos nodded his head.
+
+"You did not do it?" said Sarrion sharply.
+
+"No. They found him among the Carlists, There were five or six priests.
+It was Zeneta--wounded himself--who recognised him and told me. He was
+not dead when Zeneta found him--and he spoke. 'Always the losing game,'
+he said. Then he smiled--and died."
+
+Sarrion turned and led the way slowly back again towards the house.
+Juanita seemed to have forgotten her intention of going to the valley to
+offer help to the nursing-sisters who lived in the village.
+
+Marcos' horse, the Moor, was shaking and dragged on the bridle which he
+had slipped over his arm. He jerked angrily at the reins, looking back
+with a little exclamation of impatience. Juanita took the bridle from his
+arm and led the horse which followed her quietly enough. She said nothing
+and asked no questions. But she was watching Marcos' face--wondering,
+perhaps, if it would ever soften again.
+
+Sarrion was the first to speak.
+
+"Poor Mon," he said, half addressing Juanita. "He was never a fortunate
+man. He took the wrong turning years ago. He abandoned the Church in
+order to ask a woman to marry him. But she had scruples. She thought, or
+she was made to think, that her duty lay in another direction. And Mon's
+life ... well ...!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I know," said Juanita quietly ... "all about it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE CASTING VOTE
+There is in one corner of the little churchyard of Torre Garda a square
+mound which marks the burial-place, in one grave, of four hundred
+Carlists. The Wolf, it is said, carried as many more to the sea.
+
+General Pacheco completed his teaching at the mouth of the valley where
+the Carlists had left in a position (impregnable from the front) a strong
+detachment to withstand the advance of any reinforcements that might be
+sent from Pampeluna to the relief of Captain Zeneta and his handful of
+men. These were taken in the rear by the force under General Pacheco
+himself and annihilated. This is, however, a matter of history as is also
+the reputation of Pacheco. "A great general--a brute," they say of him in
+Spain to this day.
+
+By sunset all was quiet again at Torre Garda. The troops quitted the
+village as unobtrusively as they had come. They had lost but few men and
+half a dozen wounded were left behind in the village. The remainder were
+moved to Pampeluna. The Carlist list of wounded was astonishingly small.
+General Pacheco had the reputation of moving quickly. He was rarely
+hampered by his ambulance and never by the enemy's wounded. He was a
+great general.
+
+Cousin Peligros did not appear at dinner. She had an attack of nerves
+instead.
+
+"I understand nerves," said Juanita lightly when she announced that
+Cousin Peligros' chair would remain vacant. "Was I not educated in a
+convent? You need not be anxious. Yes--she will take a little soup--a
+little more than that. And all the other courses."
+
+After dinner Cousin Peligros notified through her maid that she felt well
+enough to see Marcos. When he returned from this interview he joined
+Sarrion and Juanita in the drawing-room, and he looked grave.
+
+"You have seen for yourself that there is not much the matter with her,"
+said Juanita, watching his face.
+
+"Yes," he answered rather absent-mindedly. "There is not much the matter
+with her."
+
+He did not sit down but stood with a preoccupied air and looked at the
+wood-fire which was still grateful in the evening at such an altitude as
+that of Torre Garda.
+
+"She will not stay," he said at last. "She says she is going to-morrow."
+
+Sarrion gave a short laugh and turned over the newspaper that he was
+reading. Juanita was reading an English book, with a dictionary which she
+never consulted when Marcos was near. She looked over its pages into the
+fire.
+
+"Then let her go," she said slowly and distinctly. And in a silence which
+followed, the colour slowly mounted to her face. Marcos glanced at her
+and spoke at once.
+
+"There is no question of doing anything else," he said, with a laugh that
+sounded uneasy. "She will have nerves until she sees a lamp-post again.
+She is going to Madrid."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"And she wants you to go with her and stay," said Marcos, bluntly.
+
+"It is very kind of her," answered Juanita in a cool and even voice. "You
+know, I am afraid Cousin Peligros and I should not get on very well--not
+if we sat indoors for long together, and kept our hands white."
+
+"Then you do not care to go to Madrid with her?" inquired Marcos.
+
+Juanita seemed to weigh the pros and cons of the matter with her head at
+a measuring angle while she looked into the fire.
+
+"No ... No," she answered. "I think not, thank you."
+
+"You know," Marcos explained with an odd ring of excitement in his voice.
+"I am afraid we shall have a bad name all over Spain after this. They
+always did think that we were only brigands. It will be difficult to get
+anybody to come here."
+
+Juanita made no answer to this. Sarrion was reading the paper very
+attentively. But it was he who spoke first.
+
+"I must go to Saragossa," he said, without looking up from his paper.
+"Perhaps Juanita will take compassion on my solitude there."
+
+"I always feel that it is a pity to go away from Torre Garda just as the
+spring is coming," said she, conversationally. "Don't you think so?"
+
+She glanced at Marcos as she spoke, but the remark must have been
+addressed to Sarrion, whose reply was inaudible. For some reason the two
+men seemed ill at ease and tongue-tied. There was a dull glow in Marcos'
+eyes. Juanita was quite cool and collected and mistress of the situation.
+
+"You know," said Marcos at length in his direct way, "that it is only of
+your happiness that I am thinking--you must do what you like best."
+
+"And you know that I subscribe to Marcos' polite desire," said Sarrion
+with a light laugh.
+
+"I know you are an old dear," answered Juanita, jumping up and throwing
+aside her book. "And now I am going to bed."
+
+She kissed Sarrion and smoothed back his gray hair with a quick and light
+touch.
+
+"Good-night, Marcos," she said as she passed the door which he held open.
+She gave him the friendly little nod of a comrade--but she did not look
+at him.
+
+The next morning Cousin Peligros took her departure from Torre Garda.
+
+"I wash my hands," she said, with the usual gesture, "of the whole
+affair."
+
+As her maid was seated in the carriage beside her she said no more. It
+remained uncertain whether she washed her hands of the Carlist war or of
+Juanita. She gave a sharp sigh and made no answer to Sarrion's hope that
+she would have a pleasant journey.
+
+"I have arranged," said Marcos, "that two troopers accompany you as far
+as Pampeluna, though the country will be quiet enough to-day. Pacheco has
+pacified it."
+
+"I thank you," replied Cousin Peligros, who included domestic servants in
+her category of persons in whose presence it is unladylike to be natural.
+
+She bowed to them and the carriage moved away. She was one of those
+fortunate persons who never see themselves as others see them, but move
+through existence surrounded by a halo, or a haze, of self-complacency,
+through which their perception cannot penetrate. The charitable were
+ready to testify that there was no harm in her. Hers was merely one of a
+million lives in which man can find no fault and God no fruit.
+
+Soon after her departure Sarrion and Marcos set out on horseback towards
+the village. There was another traveler there awaiting their Godspeed on
+a longer journey, towards a peace which he had never known. It was in the
+house of the old cura of Torre Garda that Sarrion looked his last on the
+man with whom he had played in childhood's days--with whom he had never
+quarrelled, though he had tried to do so often enough. The memory he
+retained of Evasio Mon was not unpleasant; for he was smiling as he lay
+in the darkened room of the priest's humble house. He was bland even in
+death.
+
+"I shall go and place some flowers on his grave," said Juanita, as they
+sat on the terrace after luncheon and Sarrion smoked his cigarettes. "Now
+that I have forgiven him."
+
+Marcos was sitting sideways on the broad balustrade, swinging one foot in
+its dusty riding-boot. He could see Juanita from where he sat. He usually
+could see her from where he elected to sit. But when she turned he was
+never looking at her. She had only found this out lately.
+
+"Have you forgiven him already?" asked he, with his dark eyes fixed on
+her half averted face. "I knew that it was easy to forget the dead, but
+to forgive ..."
+
+"Oh--it was not when he was killed that I forgave him."
+
+"Then when was it?"
+
+Juanita laughed lightly and shook her head.
+
+"I am not going to tell you that," she answered. "It is a secret between
+Evasio Mon and myself. He will understand when I place the flowers on his
+grave ... as much as men ever do understand."
+
+She vouchsafed no explanation of this ambiguous speech, but sat in
+silence looking with contemplative eyes across the valley. Sarrion was
+seated a few yards away. At times he glanced through the cigarette smoke
+at Juanita and Marcos. Suddenly he drew in his feet and sat upright.
+
+"Dinner at seven to-night," he said, briskly. "If you have no objection."
+
+"Why?" asked Juanita.
+
+"I am going to Saragossa."
+
+"To-night?" she asked hastily and stopped short. Marcos sat motionless.
+Sarrion lighted another cigarette and forgot to answer her question.
+Juanita flushed and held her lips between her teeth. Then she turned her
+head and looked at Sarrion from the corner of her eyes. She searched him
+from his keen, brown face--said by some to be the handsomest face in
+Spain--to his neat and firmly planted feet. But there was nothing written
+for her to read. He had forced her hand and she did not know whether he
+had done it on purpose or not. She knew her own mind, however. She was
+called upon to decide her whole life then and there. And she knew her own
+mind.
+
+"Seven o'clock," said the mistress of Torre Garda, rising and going
+towards the house. "I will go at once and see to it."
+
+She, presumably, carried out her intention of visiting Evasio Mon's
+grave, and perhaps said a prayer in the little chapel near to it for the
+repose of the soul of the man whom she had forgiven so suddenly and
+completely. She did not return to the terrace at all events, and the
+Sarrions went about their own affairs during the afternoon without seeing
+her again.
+
+At dinner Sarrion was unusually light-hearted and Juanita accommodated
+herself to his humour with that ease which men so rarely understand in
+women and seldom acquire for themselves. Sarrion spoke of Saragossa as if
+it were across the road and intimated that he would be coming and going
+between the two houses during the spring, and until the great heats made
+the plains of Aragon uninhabitable.
+
+"But," he said, "you see how it is with Marcos. The Valley of the Wolf is
+his care and he dare not leave it for many days together."
+
+When the parting came Juanita made light of it, herself turning Sarrion's
+fur collar up about his ears and buttoning his coat. For despite his
+sixty years he was a hardy man, and never made use of a closed carriage.
+It was a dark night with no moon.
+
+"It is all the better," said Marcos. "If the horses can see nothing, they
+cannot shy."
+
+Marcos accompanied his father down the slope to the great gate where the
+drawbridge had once been, sitting on the front seat beside him in the
+four-wheeled dogcart. They left Juanita standing in the open doorway,
+waving her hand gaily, her slim form outlined against the warm lamplight
+within the house.
+
+At the drawbridge Marcos bade his father farewell. They had parted at the
+same spot a hundred times before. There was but the one train from
+Pampeluna to Saragossa and both had made the journey many times. There
+was no question of a long absence from each other; but this parting was
+not quite like the others. Neither said anything except those
+conventional words of farewell which from constant use have lost any
+meaning they ever had.
+
+Sarrion gathered the reins in his gloved hands, glanced back over the
+collar which Juanita had vigorously pulled up about his ears, and with a
+nod, drove away into the night.
+
+When Marcos, who walked slowly up the slope, returned to the house he
+found it in darkness. The servants had gone to bed. It was past ten
+o'clock. The window of his own study had been left open and the lamp
+burnt there. He went in, extinguished the lamp, and taking a candle went
+up-stairs to his own room. He did not stay in the room, however, but went
+out to the balcony which ran the whole length of the house.
+
+In a few minutes his father's carriage must cross the bridge with that
+hollow sound of wheels which Evasio Mon had mistaken for guns.
+
+A breeze was springing up and the candle which Marcos had set on a table
+near the open window guttered. He blew it out and went out in the
+darkness. He knew where to find the chair that stood on the balcony just
+outside his window and sat down to listen for the rumble of the carriage
+across the bridge.
+
+He turned his head at the sound of a window being opened and Perro who
+lay at his feet lifted his nose and sniffed gently. A shaft of light lay
+across the balcony at the far end of the house. Juanita had opened her
+shutters. She knew that Sarrion must pass the bridge in a few minutes and
+was going to listen for him.
+
+Marcos leant forward and touched Perro who understood and was still. For
+a moment Juanita appeared on the balcony, stepping to the railing and
+back again. The shaft of light then remained half obscured by her shadow
+as she stood in the window. She was not going to bed until she had heard
+Sarrion cross the bridge.
+
+Thus they waited and in a few minutes the low growling voice of the river
+was dominated by the hollow echo of the bridge. Sarrion had gone.
+
+Juanita went within her room and extinguished the lamp. It was a warm
+night and the pine trees gave out a strong and subtle scent such as they
+only emit in spring. The bracken added its discreet breath hardly
+amounting to a tangible odour. There were violets, also, not far away.
+
+Perro at Marcos' feet, stirred uneasily and looked up into his master's
+face. Instinctively Marcos turned to look over his shoulder. Juanita was
+standing close behind him.
+
+"Marcos," she said, quietly, "you remember--long, long ago--in the
+cloisters at Pampeluna, when I was only a child--you made a promise. You
+promised that you would never interfere in my life."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have come ..." she paused and passing in front of him, stood there
+with her back to the balustrade and her hands behind her in an attitude
+which was habitual to her. "I have come," she began again deliberately,
+"to let you off that promise--Not that you have kept it very well, you
+know--"
+
+She broke off and gave a short laugh, such as a man may hear perhaps once
+in his whole life, and hearing it, must know that he has not lived in
+vain.
+
+"But I don't mind," she said.
+
+She moved uneasily. For her eyes, growing accustomed to the darkness,
+could discern his face. She returned to the spot where Marcos had first
+discovered her, behind his chair.
+
+"And, Marcos--you made another promise. You said that we were only going
+to play at being married--a sort of game."
+
+"Yes," he answered steadily. He did not turn. He never saw her hands
+stretched out towards him. Then suddenly he gave a start and sat still as
+stone. Her hands were on his hair, soft as the touch of a bird. Her
+fingers crept down his forehead and closed over his eyes firmly and
+tenderly--a precaution which was unnecessary in the darkness--for she was
+leaning over his chair and her hair, dusky as the night itself, fell over
+his face like a curtain.
+
+"Then I think it is a stupid game--and I do not want to play it any
+longer ... Marcos."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Velvet Glove, by Henry Seton Merriman
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