noticing that the wash from the surf was now reaching his big
boots. "God, what a woman!"

But, all of a sudden, the Rector stopped. It was as though something had
been brewing silently in the unconscious recesses of his soul, and then
had rapidly boiled up, catching in his throat, strangling him, filling
his whole being with mortal anguish.

"She said ... and ... supposing it were true! How do I know she is
lying!"

As Pascualo followed this trend of thought, he stamped and splashed up
and down on the wet sands, driving his nails into his hands, and
swearing under his breath as he swore only at sea when a blow was on.
See here ... Tonet was engaged to Dolores once! It was Tonet who had
taken him to her house, in the first place. The two were together a
great deal of the time. She was always talking to him about Tonet! Tonet
this, Tonet that! "And I ... I ... never ... God ... the last to suspect
anything! The laughing-stock of the Gulf! And yet ... bah ...
impossible!" How that damned woman would like to see him get upset, and
make trouble the way she did! Be taken in like that? Not a grown-up man,
like him! And besides, what had the wench said! Nothing but what Roseta
had said, and hundreds of others, but just to worry him! The men on the
beach always had jokes like that on each other, to make things lively.
But it was just fun! Whereas that Rosario was trying to make trouble,
she was! Spiteful as a mad cat! "Bosh, lies, lies! I stand by Dolores,
through thick and thin! And that boy of ours! Pascualet, the little
major! And what a regular old salt, though hardly as big as a chipmunk!
_Mentira! Tot mentira!_"

And the Rector stamped and splashed on up and down the beach, talking
aloud, stopping, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating, inviting the
sea, the boats, the very shadows of the night, to say whether it was not
all a damned lie of that crazy female. Though a wicked devil was lurking
somewhere inside him; for every time that he said "lie," and the objects
of the night said "lie," the word echoed within him as "_Llanut_,
_bruto_, steer, bull, ox--with horns!"

"And, by God, if it is true ..." What he had said to Roseta that
afternoon on the way home through the Grao, came into his mind. Tonet,
Dolores ... yes, even Pascualet ... if one of them laid a finger on his
honor! "And wait a minute! A woman like that, to get even with Dolores,
would slander her in public! But would she come to me intimate-like, al