The green shutters had been closed across the windows for nearly three months, when on one spring morning the villagers looked up to see the house astir and the windows opened wide.

There had been much to detain the Sarrions at Saragossa and Juanita had to wait for the gratification of her desire to smell the pines and the bracken again.

It seemed that it was no one’s business to question the validity of the strange marriage in the chapel of Our Lady of the Shadows.  Evasio Mon who was supposed to know more about it than any other, only smiled and said nothing.  Leon de Mogente was absorbed in his own peculiar selfishness which was not of this world but the next.  He fell into the mistake common to ecstatic minds that thoughts of Heaven justify a deliberate neglect of obvious duties on earth.

“Leon,” said Juanita gaily to Cousin Peligros, “will assuredly be a saint some day:  he has so little sense of humour.”

For Leon it seemed could not be brought to understand Juanita’s sunny view of life.

“You may look solemn and talk of great mistakes as much as you like,” she said to her brother.  “But I know I was never meant for a nun.  It will all come right in the end.  Uncle Ramon says so.  I don’t know what he means.  But he says it will all come right in the end.”

And she shook her head with that wisdom of the world which is given to women only; which may live in the same heart as ignorance and innocence and yet be superior to all the knowledge that all the sages have ever put in books.

There were lawyers to be consulted and moreover paid, and Juanita gaily splashed down her name in a bold schoolgirl hand on countless documents.

There is a Spanish proverb warning the unwary never to drink water in the dark or sign a paper unread.  And Marcos made Juanita read everything she signed.  She was quick enough, and only laughed when he protested that she had not taken in the full meaning of the document.

“I understand it quite enough,” she answered.  “It is not worth troubling about.  It is only money.  You men think of nothing else.  I do not want to understand it any better.”

“Not now; but some day you will.”

Juanita looked at him, pen in hand, momentarily grave.

“You are always thinking of what I shall do ... some day,” she said.

And Marcos did not deny it.

“You seem to hedge me around with precautions against that time,” she continued, thoughtfully, and looked at him with bright and searching eyes.

At length all the formalities were over, and they were free to go to Torre Garda.  Events were moving rapidly in Spain at this time, and the small wonder of Juanita’s marriage was already a thing half forgotten.  Had it not been for her great wealth the whole matter would have passed unnoticed; for wealth is still a burden upon its owners, and there are many who must perforce go away sorrowful on account of their great possessions.  Half the world guessed, however, at the truth, and every man judged the Sarrions from his own political standpoint, praising or blaming according to preconceived convictions.  But there were some in high places who knew that a great danger had been averted.