toward everybody, even my mother, who never really understood his rare nature.  Only to me he showed his heart of gold, his high and noble character, his deep feeling—­a prickly pear, outside rough and inside honey-sweet.  He brought me up as if I was to be a cabinet minister, and treated me like a beloved comrade from the time I was twelve, so that my mother was often jealous of me.  When I grew up, he would sometimes say, ‘Whoever wants to marry my Pilar will have to fight with me first.’  And he meant it.  You probably know that we develop early in Spain.  At sixteen I was not very different from what I am now.  Count Pozaldez was a young lieutenant of cavalry, and my father’s adjutant.  Of course we saw a good deal of one another, and he soon began to behave as if he were madly in love with me.  I was not averse to him, for he was young, handsome, and aristocratic.  And what else does a girl of sixteen look for?  I naturally had no difficulty in understanding his glances and his sighs, but it went on for months without his making me a formal proposal.  One day he wrote me a letter eight pages long, in which he informed me that, as he possessed nothing in the world but his sword, he dared not venture to lift his eyes to the heiress of the richest landowner in Old Castile; beside that, he was not worthy of me, only a king could be that—­the wretch!  But I will come back to that later on.  On the other hand, however, he could not live without me, and if I did not return his love he was resolved to put a bullet through his brain.  Of course I instantly saw him with a bullet-hole in his forehead, and shed tears for the poor young man.  I did not want anybody to die for my sake.  I pictured to myself how beautiful it would be to make a young man, without fortune or position, with nothing but his love for me, happy, rich, and great by the gift of my hand.  I showed the letter to my mother, and asked her what was to be done.  She at once took up the young man’s cause.  My soul would most assuredly fall a prey to the devil if I let poor Pozaldez kill himself.  He was of good family, and would soon make his way as the son-in-law of the Marquis de Henares.  I must unquestionably do something to raise his spirits.  My mother’s advice coincided with my own feelings.  I allowed the count a secret interview, and he had permission to ask my father for my hand.  He did so in fear and trembling.  He was dismissed with scorn and contumely.  My mother and I then used all our influence to turn my father, and—­I was married to Count Pozaldez before I was seventeen.”

She was silent for a little while, and then went on:  “I will make my story short.  One year afterward, when I was in bed with my first child, he brought his mistresses to the house.  I was determined to leave him on the spot.  My mother brought about a reconciliation.  Soon after that he began to ill-treat me.  I suffered that in silence too, to avoid a public scandal, and more particularly for