tern, and Felipe, coming, charged me
without a word upon his shoulders, and carried me down to the great
gate, where the cart was waiting. In the moonlight the hills stood out
sharply, as if they were of cardboard; on the glimmering surface of the
plateau, and from among the low trees which swung together and sparkled
in the wind, the great black cube of the residencia stood out bulkily,
its mass only broken by three dimly lighted windows in the northern
front above the gate. They were Olalla's windows, and as the cart jolted
onwards I kept my eyes fixed upon them till, where the road dipped into
a valley, they were lost to my view for ever. Felipe walked in silence
beside the shafts, but from time to time he would check the mule and
seem to look back upon me; and at length drew quite near and laid his
hand upon my head. There was such kindness in the touch, and such a
simplicity, as of the brutes, that tears broke from me like the bursting
of an artery.

"Felipe," I said, "take me where they will ask no questions."

He said never a word, but he turned his mule about, end for end,
retraced some part of the way we had gone, and, striking into another
path, led me to the mountain village, which was, as we say in Scotland,
the kirk-town of that thinly peopled district. Some broken memories
dwell in my mind of the day breaking over the plain, of the cart
stopping, of arms that helped me down, of a bare room into which I was
carried, and of a swoon that fell upon me like sleep.

The next day and the days following, the old priest was often at my side
with his snuff-box and prayer-book, and after a while, when I began to
pick up strength, he told me that I was now on a fair way to recovery,
and must as soon as possible hurry my departure; whereupon, without
naming any reason, he took snuff and looked at me sideways. I did not
affect ignorance; I knew he must have seen Olalla. "Sir," said I, "you
know that I do not ask in wantonness. What of that family?"

He said they were very unfortunate; that it seemed a declining race, and
that they were very poor and had been much neglected.

"But she has not," I said. "Thanks, doubtless, to yourself, she is
instructed and wise beyond the use of women."

"Yes," he said, "the Senorita is well-informed. But the family has been
neglected."

"The mother?" I queried.

"Yes, the mother too," said the Padre, taking snuff. "But Felipe is a
well-intentioned lad."

"The mother is odd?"