that the driver paid but little heed to his horses.
His attention wandered constantly to the mountains. For, instead of
looking to the road in front, his head was ever to the right, and his
eyes searched the plain and the bare brown hills.

At last he pulled up and, turning on his box, held up one finger.

"Listen, Senorita," he said, and his dark eyes were alight with
excitement.

Juanita stood up and listened, looking westward as he did. The sound was
like the sound of thunder, but shorter and sharper.

"What is it?"

"The Carlists--the sons of dogs!" he answered, with a laugh, and he
shook his whip towards the mountains. "See," he said, gathering up the
reins again, "that dust on the road to the west--that is the troops
marching out from Pampeluna. We are in it again--in it again!"

At the gate of the city there was a crowd of people. The carriage had to
stand aside against the trees to let pass the guns which clattered down
the slope. The men were laughing and shouting to each other. The
officers, erect on their horses, seemed to think only of the safety of
the guns as a woman entering a ballroom reviews her jewelery with a quick
comprehensive glance.

At the guard-house, beneath the second gateway, there occurred another
delay. The driver was a Pampeluna man and well-known to the sentries. But
they did not recognise his passenger and sent for the officer on duty.

"The Senorita Juanita de Mogente," he muttered, as he came into the
road--a stout and grizzled warrior smoking a cigarette. "Ah, yes!" he
said, with a grave bow at the carriage door. "I remember you as a
schoolgirl. I remember now. Forgive the delay and pass in--Senora de
Sarrion."

Juanita was ushered into the little bare waiting-room in the convent
school of the Sisters of the True Faith in the Calle de la Dormitaleria.
It is a small, square apartment at the end of a long and dark passage.
The day filters dimly into it through a barred window no larger than a
pocket-handkerchief. Juanita stood on tiptoe and looked into a narrow
alley. On the sill of this window Marcos had stood to wrench apart the
bars of the window immediately overhead, through which he had lifted her
one cold night--years and years ago, it seemed.

Nothing had changed in this gloomy house.

"The dear Sister Superior is at prayer in the chapel," the doorkeeper had
whispered. The usual formula; for a nun must always be given the benefit
of the doubt. If she is alone in her