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.