d occupying a good half of the
bed. The young mother's thoughts were flying over the white peaks of the
Guadarrama, traversing the desert plains of Castille, and losing
themselves among the leafy groves of Galicia.

"Will he have socks enough?" she was asking herself, at that moment.
This had been a serious anxiety to Maximina ever since her husband's
departure. "Eight pairs aren't sufficient, can't be sufficient, if he
changes them every day, as he usually does. In that country I believe
they don't wash clothes very often. Ay! _Dios mio!_ and if it should
rain, and he get his feet wet! how could he change them two or three
times a day as he does here?... I am sure that it would never occur to
him to buy some new ones.... He is very thoughtless!"

The door-bell rang. As she raised her head, her eyes met Don Alfonso's.

It is difficult to conceive the surprise that Maximina felt at that
sudden apparition, and the surprise and terror that took possession of
her. She turned pale, even livid, then her face grew crimson, then once
more pale; all in the space of a few seconds.

Saavedra shut the door, and offered her his hand with perfect ease and
self-possession.

"How are you, Maximina?"

She could scarcely articulate her answer. Her hand trembled violently.

"What does this mean? You are trembling," said the _caballero_,
retaining it a moment in his.

She made no reply.

"If it were an enemy who came in, I should understand this agitation;
but as I am such a devoted friend ... so stupidly devoted as I am to
you.... I am wrong to call myself a friend: I should do better to call
myself your slave, for these many days you have exercised an absolute
dominion over me."

The young wife's features were contracted by a smile which seemed rather
like a face of terror. Her eyes expressed the same dismay. She tried to
say something, but her voice died in her throat.

"The last time that I spoke with you, Maximina," the Andalusian went on
to say, after he had taken a seat at her side, "I was bold enough to
give you a hint of what was passing within my heart. Perhaps I was
foolish; but the step has been taken, and I cannot retrace it. I must
complete to-day what then I did not do more than indicate; I must
express to you,--although it is very difficult--the love, the idolatry
that you inspire in me, the terrible anxieties which I have been
suffering for more than a month, the state of genuine madness to which
your cruelty