for many days together."

When the parting came Juanita made light of it, herself turning Sarrion's
fur collar up about his ears and buttoning his coat. For despite his
sixty years he was a hardy man, and never made use of a closed carriage.
It was a dark night with no moon.

"It is all the better," said Marcos. "If the horses can see nothing, they
cannot shy."

Marcos accompanied his father down the slope to the great gate where the
drawbridge had once been, sitting on the front seat beside him in the
four-wheeled dogcart. They left Juanita standing in the open doorway,
waving her hand gaily, her slim form outlined against the warm lamplight
within the house.

At the drawbridge Marcos bade his father farewell. They had parted at the
same spot a hundred times before. There was but the one train from
Pampeluna to Saragossa and both had made the journey many times. There
was no question of a long absence from each other; but this parting was
not quite like the others. Neither said anything except those
conventional words of farewell which from constant use have lost any
meaning they ever had.

Sarrion gathered the reins in his gloved hands, glanced back over the
collar which Juanita had vigorously pulled up about his ears, and with a
nod, drove away into the night.

When Marcos, who walked slowly up the slope, returned to the house he
found it in darkness. The servants had gone to bed. It was past ten
o'clock. The window of his own study had been left open and the lamp
burnt there. He went in, extinguished the lamp, and taking a candle went
up-stairs to his own room. He did not stay in the room, however, but went
out to the balcony which ran the whole length of the house.

In a few minutes his father's carriage must cross the bridge with that
hollow sound of wheels which Evasio Mon had mistaken for guns.

A breeze was springing up and the candle which Marcos had set on a table
near the open window guttered. He blew it out and went out in the
darkness. He knew where to find the chair that stood on the balcony just
outside his window and sat down to listen for the rumble of the carriage
across the bridge.

He turned his head at the sound of a window being opened and Perro who
lay at his feet lifted his nose and sniffed gently. A shaft of light lay
across the balcony at the far end of the house. Juanita had opened her
shutters. She knew that Sarrion must pass the bridge in a few minutes and
was going to listen for