--

"I have come to talk with you on a subject which probably will be
irksome to you, ... but I got myself into it with over-haste, and I have
no way of retreat, but must fulfil it as well as I can.... Enrique has
told me of his desire...."

Don Bernardo dropped a second time.

"Not one word about Enrique," said he, stretching out his arm
imperiously.

Miguel felt annoyed by such haughtiness, and said ironically:--

"What! have you decided to blot him out from the memory of men?"

Senor de Rivera gave him a cold and haughty stare, which Miguel returned
with equal pride and coldness. The uncle mounted the parallels again,
and feeling that he had acted rather discourteously, said with some
difficulty, for his gymnastic effort took away his breath:--

"Enrique is a fool. After annoying me to death all his life with his
follies he wants now to finish his career by bringing dishonor on his
family."

"I have always understood that one who does some vile act dishonors his
family.... But, however, since you do not wish to talk about Enrique, we
will not. He is of age, and he will know what it becomes him to do."

He said these last words with the intention of preparing his uncle for
what might take place.

Don Bernardo made no reply: he descended from the bars, and after
getting his breath he mounted them again, and began to practise the
"frog movement." As Miguel did not immediately take his departure, he
renewed the conversation, saying:--

"It seems to me that you have grown rather thin since I saw you last,
uncle."

"Yes!" replied Don Bernardo, pausing, and sitting astride of the wooden
bars. "But you will see me much more so. There is a reason for it."

"Does your stomach trouble you?"

The _caballero_ was for a moment motionless, with eyes fixed, and then
said in a tone of deep melancholy:--

"I suffer in my mind."

And he took up his exercise with more violence than ever.

Never had Miguel heard from his uncle's lips any reference to his
innermost feelings; in his eyes he had always been in this respect a man
of iron. Thus when he heard that tender confession, it seemed to him as
though he were in a dream.

And imagining that Enrique was the cause of his uncle's griefs, although
the man had no reason to be grieved on account of his son, Miguel still
pitied him sincerely.

"I see that Enrique, of whom I am so fond, is the cause of your
troubles.... But you have two other sons, who must be the sour