by which Serafina had come, past that lonely, golden,
moon-defying candle, all down the long room across moonlight and
blackness, came the lady of the house, Serafina's mother. She came, as
Serafina came, straight toward the man on the couch, giving no look to
Rodriguez, walking something as Serafina walked, with the same poise,
the same dignity, though the years had carried away from her the grace
Serafina had: so that, though you saw that they were mother and
daughter, the elder lady called to mind the lovely things of earth,
large gardens at evening, statues dim in the dusk, summer and
whatsoever binds us to earthly things; but Serafina turned Rodriguez'
thoughts to the twilight in which he first saw her, and he pictured her
native place as far from here, in mellow fields near the moon, wherein
she had walked on twilight outlasting any we know, with all delicate
things of our fancy, too fair for the rugged earth.

As the lady approached the couch upon which the young man was lying,
and still no look was turned towards Rodriguez, his young dreams fled
as butterflies sailing high in the heat of June that are suddenly
plunged in night by a total eclipse of the sun. He had never spoken to
Serafina, or seen before her mother, and they did not know his name; he
knew that he, Rodriguez, had no claim to a welcome. But his dreams had
flocked so much about Serafina's face, basking so much in her beauty,
that they now fell back dying; and when a man's dreams die what
remains, if he lingers awhile behind them?

Rodriguez suddenly felt that his left shoe was off and his right eye
still bandaged, things that he had not noticed while his only thought
was for the man he carried to shelter, but torturing his consciousness
now that he thought of himself. He opened his lips to explain; but
before words came to him, looking at the face of Serafina's mother,
standing now by the couch, he felt that, not knowing how, he had
somehow wronged the Penates of this house, or whatever was hid in the
dimness of that long chamber, by carrying in this young man there to
rest from his hurt.

Rodriguez' depression arose from these causes, but having arisen, it
grew of its own might: he had had nothing to eat since morning, and in
the favouring atmosphere of hunger his depression grew gigantic. He
opened his lips once more to say farewell, was oppressed by all manner
of thoughts that held him dumb, and turned away in silence and left the
house. Outs