the steep, clayey bank of a ravine through which a tiny stream
trickled, and that the animal's flanks were stained with blood.
Instantly his eyes grew humid.

"_Pobre!_" he cried, leaping from the saddle and caressing the
horse's nostrils. "To be shamed before men have I always dreaded, but
'tis worse to be shamed before myself."

And leading his steed by the bridle, the young cavalier turned back
towards Porto by winding grassy paths purpled with anemones and
bordered by gray olive-trees, with here and there the vivid gleam of
oranges peeping amid deep green foliage that tore the sky into a
thousand azure patches.

II

He remounted his horse as he approached the market-place, from which
the town climbed up; but he found his way blocked, for 'twas
market-day, and the great square, bordered with a colonnade that made
an Eastern bazaar, was thickly planted with stalls, whose white canvas
awnings struck a delicious note of coolness against the throbbing blue
sky and the flaming costumes of the peasants come up from the
environs. Through a corner of the _praca_ one saw poplars and elms and
the fresh gleam of the river. The nasal hum of many voices sounded
blithe and busy. At the bazaar entrance, where old women vended
flowers and fruit, Gabriel reined in his horse.

"How happy these simple souls!" he mused. "How sure of their
salvation! To count their beads and mutter their _Ave Marias_; 'tis
all they need. Yon fisher, with his great gold ear-rings, who throws
his nets and cuddles his Juanita and carouses with his mates, hath
more to thank the saints for than miserable I, who, blessed with
wealth, am cursed with loneliness, and loving my fellow-men, yet know
they are but sheep. God's sheep, natheless, silly and deaf to the cry
of their true shepherd, and misled by priestly wolves."

A cripple interrupted his reflections by a whining appeal. Gabriel
shuddered with pity at the sight of his sores, and, giving him a piece
of silver, lost himself in a new reverie on the mystery of suffering.

"Thine herbs sold out too!" cheerily grumbled a well-known voice, and,
turning his head, Gabriel saw that the burly old gentleman addressing
the wrinkled market-woman from the vantage-point of a mule's back was,
indeed, Dom Diego de Balthasar, late professor of the logics at the
University of Coimbra, and newly settled in Porto as a physician.

"Ay, indeed, ere noon!" the dried-up old dame mumbled. "All Porto
seems hungry for b