is quite as epigenetic as the former. Both are alike _determinative_,
while neither supposes that the determination is due to a pre-formed
miniature of the future child in the fertilized egg of its mother; but
to a particulate _representation_ in the latter of every heritable part
of the former.

[44] By “germ” Galton means a carrier of heredity, which is capable of
self-multiplication. In these fundamental respects, therefore, it is
equivalent to a “gemmule” on the one hand and a “determinant” on the
other. The three terms are so far synonymous.

[45] _Loc. cit._, p. 338.

[46] _Loc. cit._, p. 339.

[47] _The Germ-plasm_, pp. 199, 220.

[48] pp. 72-4.

[49] _The Germ-plasm_, pp. 383-386.

[50] Quoted from above, p. 78.

[51] _Morph. Journal_, vol. ii.

[52] See Appendix II.

[53] _Essays on Heredity_, vol. ii. pp. 193-4.

[54] See above, pp. 63-67.

[55] _Nature_, vol. xli. p. 322.

[56] _The Germ-plasm_, pp. 414-415. Italics Weismann’s.

[57] _Essays_, vol. i. p. 284.

[58] _The Germ-plasm_, p. 431.

[59] _Variation_ &c., vol. i. p. 398.

[60] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 242.

[61] _Nature_, May 11, pp. 28-29.—In 1891-2 Professor Hartog furnished
a criticism of Weismann’s theory of Heredity (_Nature_, vol. 44. p.
613, and _Contemporary Review_, July, 1892). Although disputed at the
time by some of Weismann’s followers in England, this criticism was
one of unquestionable cogency, and has now been recognized as such
by Weismann himself (_The Germ-plasm_, pp. 434-5). The main point
of the criticism had been missed by previous critics of Weismann,
and consisted in revealing an important “difficulty” inherent in the
structure of the theory itself. How far this criticism had the effect
of causing Professor Weismann to abandon his theory of variation being
exclusively due to amphimixis, as Professor Hartog appears to think
(_Nature_, May 11, 1893, p. 28), is immaterial. But it must be observed
that as far back as February, 1890, Professor Weismann in his answer to
Professor Vines’ criticism wrote the passage already quoted on page 152.

[62] It is almost needless to say that no fault is to be found with
Weismann for having thus reversed his opinion touching one of his
fundamental postulates. Consistency is no merit in a man of science;
and least of all where matters of such high speculation are concerned.
I think, however, that it is open to question whether an author of any
kind should suffer an elaborate system of theories to be published and
translated, at the very time when he is himself engaged in producing
another work showing the untenable character of their basal premises.
At any rate, it would have saved his English readers no small trouble
and confusion, if Weismann had added notes to the translations of his
essays on _Polar Bodies_, on _The Significance of Sexual Reproduction_,
and on _Amphimixis_, to the effect that he had abandoned some of their
most distinctive features before the translations had gone to press.

[63] See especially pp. 86-89. All that is there said about the
unicellular organisms is not, in the present connexion, affected
by Weismann’s change of view with regard to them. We have only to
substitute “primordial” or “protoplasmic” for “unicellular,” and nearly
all the points of the criticism remain.

[64] Professor Weismann has now considered more fully than heretofore
the phenomena of bud-variation (_The Germ-plasm_, pp. 439-442); but as
he continues (though with diffidence) to take substantially the same
view of them as that which I have already quoted on pp. 95-96, it is
needless for me to re-discuss the matter here.

[65] “Rejuvenescence” means the renewal of vital energies which is
supposed to result from a fusion of the contents of two cells. For an
excellent discussion of this and the other theories on the object of
sexual propagation, see a brief article by Professor Marcus Hartog,
in the _Contemporary Review_ for July, 1892. Since then Weismann has
published _The Germ-plasm_, and here his main argument against this
theory is that tens, or even hundreds of generations of unicellular
organisms have been observed to succeed one another before any act of
conjugation takes place. But I cannot see that it signifies how many
generations may in different species be proved capable of resulting
from a single act of conjugation. Weismann himself now accepts the
analogy between cell-proliferation as resulting from conjugation in
unicellular organisms, and from fertilization in multicellular. But
even three hundred generations of the former can scarcely be regarded
as equal to all the “ontogenetic stages” of the latter.

[66] This view of the function of sexual propagation is now universally
ascribed to Strasburger, and it is quite true that he has independently
adduced it. But as this was not done until about ten years after it had
been published by Galton, I have designedly associated the idea with
Galton’s name. The following are the words in which it was announced by
him:—

“The necessity of a system of double parentage in complex organisations
is the immediate consequence of a theory of organic units and germs,
as we shall see if we fix our attention upon any one definite series
of unisexual descents, and follow out its history. Suppose we select,
cut off, and plant the second bud, then after it has grown to maturity
we similarly take the second of _its_ buds, and so on consecutively.
At each successive stage there is always a chance of some one or more
of the various species of germs in the stirp dying out, or being
omitted; and of course when they are gone they are lost for ever, and
are irreplaceable by others. From time to time this chance must fall
unfavourably, and will cause a deficiency in some of the structural
elements, and a consequent deterioration of the race. If the loss be
vital, this particular line of descent will of course be extinguished
at once; but on the more favourable supposition, the race will linger
on, submitting to successive decrements in its constituent elements,
until the accumulation of small losses becomes fatal.”—_loc. cit._, p.
333.

Galton also points out a further advantage that is secured by
“amphimixis,” and one which shows the non-necessity of what remains of
Weismann’s theory of polar bodies, thus:—

“There is yet another advantage in double parentage, namely, that as
the stirp whence the child sprang can only be half the size of the
combined stirps of his two parents, it follows that one half of his
possible heritage must have been suppressed. This implies a sharp
struggle for place among the competing germs, and the success, as we
may infer, of the fitter half of their numerous varieties.”—_loc.
cit._, p. 334.

[67] In fact, it seems to me that this is the sole supposition whereby
it can be held that sexual propagation has been developed both “_by_”
and “_for_” natural selection, in order to supply variations as
material for the action of this principle. Natural selection cannot
thus supply the conditions to its own activity, if, as Weismann
supposes, there is but one purpose for it to subserve (see above, pp.
13-15). But, if it is acting for more than one purpose, the “by” and
the “for” argument may hold.

[68] I find that a passage explaining the sense in which I use these
terms has been accidentally omitted from Chapter III, where they are
first introduced; and, as the sheets of that chapter have been already
printed off, I here supply the omission. The terms in italics are not
Weismann’s, and I have employed them merely for the purpose of giving
precision to his views. By “_absolute_ stability of germ-plasm” I mean
to indicate that degree of stability which he has hitherto postulated
as the necessary basis for his doctrine of heritable variations
being solely due to admixtures of germ-plasm in sexual unions. By
“_perpetual_ continuity of germ-plasm” I intend to denote that amount
of continuity which he still postulates as the necessary basis for
his correlative doctrine touching the non-inheritance of acquired
characters.

[69] _Essays_, pp. 76-77, from which the following quotations are
likewise taken _seriatim_.

[70] “Or, more precisely, they must give up as many molecules as would
correspond to the number of the kind of cell in question found in the
mature organism.” Of course by “molecules” Weismann means what Darwin
does by “gemmules.”

[71] If there are such things as gemmules, it appears to me to follow
that the only physiological distinction between the reproductive glands
and glands in general is, that the former discharge their products in
the form of living cells. Even here, however, there appears to be one
analogous case in those salivary glands which discharge the so-called
salivary corpuscles—i.e., nucleated cells, undergoing amoeboid changes
of form, and exhibiting the movements of living protoplasm in their
interior.

[72] _Variation_, &c., 2nd ed., vol. ii. pp. 374-6.

[73] _Nature_, vol. xl. p. 624. Weismann’s answer to this and other
parts of Professor Vines’ criticism where the term “somato-plasm”
occurs, will be considered later on.

[74] Weismann speaks disparagingly of Darwin’s theory as a “theory
of _preformation_” (p. 316). “We must assume,” he adds by way of
explanation, “that each single part of the body at each developmental
stage is, from the first, represented in the germ-cell as distinct
particles of matter, which will reproduce each part of the body at its
appropriate stage as their turn for development arrives.” But must we
not likewise “assume” exactly the same thing in the case of Weismann’s
own theory? To me, at any rate, it appears that the description is
quite as appropriate to germ-plasm as it is to gemmules. Nor can I see
any distinction, even where he seeks to draw it more expressly, as
for instance—“Every detail in the whole organism must be represented
in the germ-plasm by its own special and peculiar arrangement of
the groups of molecules, ... not indeed as the pre-formed germs of
structure (the gemmules of pangenesis), but as variations in its
molecular constitution.” [_Essays_, p. 194.] Again, on page 325 he
gives a foot-note explaining the distinction by alluding to the
controversy between the preformationists and epigenesists. But the
theory of pangenesis does not suppose the future organism to exist in
the egg-cell _as a miniature_: it supposes merely that every part of
the future organism is represented in the egg-cell by corresponding
material particles. And this, as far as I can understand, is exactly
what the theory of germ-plasm supposes; only it calls the particles
“molecules,” and seemingly attaches more importance to the matter of
variations in their arrangement or “constitution,” whatever these vague
expressions may be intended to signify.

[75] ‘Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the Year
1821,’ Part I. pp, 20-24.

[76] Readers who may happen to be acquainted with De Vries’ important
essay on heredity will perceive how well this suggestion fits in with
his modification of Pangenesis.

[77] As already indicated, I cannot gather from his remarks on the
subject which, if any, of the alternative interpretations of the
phenomena that we are considering Mr. Spencer adopts. From the
following sentences it would appear that he assigns yet a third
interpretation, _and this as the only possible one_. For he says of
these phenomena: “They prove that while the reproductive cells multiply
and arrange themselves during the evolution of the embryo, some of
their germ-plasm passes into the mass of somatic cells constituting the
parental body, and becomes a permanent component of it. Further, they
necessitate the inference that this introduced germ-plasm, everywhere
diffused, is some of it included in the reproductive cells subsequently
formed” (_Contemporary Review_, March, p. 452). This appears to
mean that the influence of a previous sire can only be explained by
supposing that the developing embryo inoculates the somatic tissues of
its mother with hereditary material derived from its father, and that
the maternal tissue afterwards reflect some of this material (or its
influence) to the still unripe ovarian ova. If this be the hypothesis
intended, it seems to me more complex than any of the three which I
have suggested. But, be this as it may, we certainly cannot agree
that such an hypothesis is “proved” by the facts, or that the latter
“necessitate” the inference as to its being some of the _embryo’s_
germinal matter which enters the unripe ova.

[78] “A Text Book of Human Physiology.” By Austin Flint, M.D., LL. D.
Fourth edition. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1888. Page 797.


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