s gray hair with a quick and light
touch.

"Good-night, Marcos," she said as she passed the door which he held open.
She gave him the friendly little nod of a comrade--but she did not look
at him.

The next morning Cousin Peligros took her departure from Torre Garda.

"I wash my hands," she said, with the usual gesture, "of the whole
affair."

As her maid was seated in the carriage beside her she said no more. It
remained uncertain whether she washed her hands of the Carlist war or of
Juanita. She gave a sharp sigh and made no answer to Sarrion's hope that
she would have a pleasant journey.

"I have arranged," said Marcos, "that two troopers accompany you as far
as Pampeluna, though the country will be quiet enough to-day. Pacheco has
pacified it."

"I thank you," replied Cousin Peligros, who included domestic servants in
her category of persons in whose presence it is unladylike to be natural.

She bowed to them and the carriage moved away. She was one of those
fortunate persons who never see themselves as others see them, but move
through existence surrounded by a halo, or a haze, of self-complacency,
through which their perception cannot penetrate. The charitable were
ready to testify that there was no harm in her. Hers was merely one of a
million lives in which man can find no fault and God no fruit.

Soon after her departure Sarrion and Marcos set out on horseback towards
the village. There was another traveler there awaiting their Godspeed on
a longer journey, towards a peace which he had never known. It was in the
house of the old cura of Torre Garda that Sarrion looked his last on the
man with whom he had played in childhood's days--with whom he had never
quarrelled, though he had tried to do so often enough. The memory he
retained of Evasio Mon was not unpleasant; for he was smiling as he lay
in the darkened room of the priest's humble house. He was bland even in
death.

"I shall go and place some flowers on his grave," said Juanita, as they
sat on the terrace after luncheon and Sarrion smoked his cigarettes. "Now
that I have forgiven him."

Marcos was sitting sideways on the broad balustrade, swinging one foot in
its dusty riding-boot. He could see Juanita from where he sat. He usually
could see her from where he elected to sit. But when she turned he was
never looking at her. She had only found this out lately.

"Have you forgiven him already?" asked he, with his dark eyes fixed on
her half aver