Her former passion was reflected in her eyes.  A flicker of humble love lit up her bruised countenance.

“We established ourselves in this house which belongs to a German electrician, a friend of the doctor’s.  Whenever she went away on a trip leaving me free, my steps would invariably turn to the harbor.  I was waiting to see your ship.  My eyes followed the seamen sympathetically, thinking that I could see in all of them something of your person....  ‘Some day he will come,’ I would say to myself.  You know how selfish love is!  I gradually forgot the death of your son....  Besides, I am not the one who is really guilty:  there are others.  I have been deceived just as you have been.  ’He is going to come, and we shall be happy again!’... Ay!  If this room could speak ... if this divan on which I have dreamed so many times could talk!...  I was always arranging some flowers in a vase, making believe that you were going to come.  I was always fixing myself up a little bit, imagining it was for you....  I was living in your country, and it was natural that you should come.  Suddenly the paradise that I was imagining vanished into smoke.  We received the news, I don’t know how, of the imprisonment of von Kramer, and that you had been his accuser.  The doctor anathematized me, making me responsible for everything.  Through me she had known you, and that was enough to make her include me in her indignation.  All our band began to plan for your death, longing to have it accompanied with the most atrocious tortures....”

Ferragut interrupted her.  His brow was furrowed as though dominated by a tenacious idea....  Perhaps he was not listening to her.

“Where is the doctor?"...

The tone of the question was disquieting.  He clenched his fists, looking around him as though awaiting the appearance of the imposing dame.  His attitude was just like that which had accompanied his attack on Freya.

“I don’t know where she’s traveling,” said his companion.  “She is probably in Madrid, in San Sebastian, or in Cadiz.  She goes off very frequently.  She has friends everywhere....  And I have ventured to ask you here simply because I am alone.”

And she described the life that she was leading in this retreat.  For the time being her former protector was letting her remain in inaction, abstaining from giving her any work whatever.  She was doing everything herself, avoiding all intermediaries.  What had happened to von Kramer had made her so jealous and suspicious that when she needed aids, she admitted only her compatriots living in Barcelona.

A ferocious and determined band, made up of refugees from the South American republics, parasites from the coast cities or vagabonds from the inland forests, had grouped itself around her.  At their head, as message-bearer for the doctor, was Karl, the secretary that Ferragut had seen in the great old house of the district of Chiaja.