The “Wooden Staff” shook his head obstinately.

“You will not convince me, I do not wish to hear you.  That woman shall not return here; did she not leave me?  Let her follow her own path.”

“She left you from impulses of that instinct which all healthy beings possess.  That instinct for the preservation of the species, which poetry beautifies and which it calls ‘Love.’  If she had left you after receiving the blessing of a man before an altar, you would have been delighted, and would have received her with open arms whenever she came to see you.  She left you to be deceived, to fall into misery and shame, and, seeing her so unhappy, does she not deserve more pity at your hands than if you saw her living happily?  Reflect, Esteban, on the way in which your poor daughter fell.  What had you taught her to enable her to defend herself from the evil in the world?  How was she armed to preserve intact what you call honour?  You and your wife had set her the example of the respect due to wealth and high birth by allowing that young man to come to your house, thinking it an honour that a gentleman should have fallen in love with your daughter.  When the inevitable results of social inequality came about she could not give him up; she had one of those noble natures that rise in revolt against the prejudices of the world, even at the risk of suffering all the bitterness of their rebellion, and she fell vanquished.  Whom can you blame?  Her ignorance, her life of isolation from the world, or yourselves who never taught her better, and who, blinded by ambition, let her wander to the edge of the precipice?  Blame her less than anybody.  Unhappy girl!  She has paid with interest her noble defiance of social prejudices.  She has been vanquished in the social fight—­a corpse that has to be buried; and you, her father, ought to be the one to fulfil that work of mercy.”

Esteban, with his head bent, continued to make gestures of refusal.

“Brother,” said Gabriel solemnly; “if you hold tenaciously to your refusal I have only one thing more to say.  If your daughter does not return here, I must go.  Everyone has his scruples; you fear the gossip of the people; I fear myself and what my thoughts can throw in my face in my solitary moments.  Since I have been your guest I have thought constantly of your daughter, and ever since I have known what happened in this house I have proposed to myself that the unhappy victim should return here.  You will not let her return?  Well then, I must go.  I should be a thief if I ate your bread while a creature who is flesh of your flesh suffers hunger, or if I should be nursed in my illness while she, who is possibly worse than I am, has no friendly hand to comfort her.  If she does not return, I am not your brother, but an intruder, usurping the share of affection and comfort that ought to fall to her.  Brother, everyone has his own code of morality; yours is taught by the priests, mine I have made for myself,