that was my duty.  So, when my youth come back, though I think some by Enrique, suppose you are more in the mind, which, after all, is old, though much fall away.  And I want, want to see you, but no like to ask you to come, for you are so busy and so ambeetious, and I know I live till you come again si is a year, and that make me feel happy.  No cry, my friend.  I no cry, for is sweet to be young again.  Often I no can understand why not loving you then; you are so fine man now—­but was boy then, and I admeer so much the caballeros, so splendid, and talk so graceful; no was use then to the other kind.  But, although I no theenk much before—­have so many babies and so much trouble, and, after, nothing no matter—­always I feel deep down I have miss something in life; often I sigh, but no know why.  But theenk much when go to die, and now I know that si I am really young again, and well, I marry you and am happy in so many ways with you, and have the intelligence.  Never I really have been alive.  I know that now.”

She fell back, panting a little, and her voice, always very low, had become almost inaudible.  She motioned to a bottle of angelica on the table beside her, and John took her in his arms and put the glass to her lips.  It brought the color back to her face, and she lifted her arms and crossed them behind his neck.

“Juan,” she whispered coaxingly, “you have love me once—­I know, and sometimes have cried, because theenk how I have made you suffer.  Make the believe I am really the young girl again, and love me like then.  Going very soon now—­and will make me very happy.”

“It is easy enough to imagine,” he said; “easy enough!  It will be a ghastly travesty, God knows, but could I have foreseen to-day during that terrible time, I would have welcomed it as better than nothing.”

THE END