“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.