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.