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.