ing had turned against her. The farmers, her tenants,
had left Etchezar, leaving the barn empty, the house more lonely,
and naturally her modest income was much diminished. Moreover, in
an imprudent investment, she had lost a part of the money which the
stranger had given for her son. Truly, she was too unskilful a mother,
compromising in every way the happiness of her beloved Ramuntcho,--or
rather, she was a mother upon whom justice from above fell heavily
to-day, because of her past error.--And all this had vanquished her, all
this had hastened and aggravated the malady which the physician, called
too late, did not succeed in checking.

Now, therefore, waiting for the return of her son, she was stretched on
her bed, burning with fever.

CHAPTER II.

He was returning, Ramuntcho, after his three years of absence,
discharged from the army in that city of the North where his regiment
was in garrison. He was returning with his heart in disarray, with his
heart in a tumult and in distress.

His twenty-two year old face had darkened under the ardent sun; his
mustache, now very long, gave him an air of proud nobility. And, on
the lapel of the civilian coat which he had just bought, appeared the
glorious ribbon of his medal.

At Bordeaux, where he had arrived after a night of travel, he had taken
a place, with some emotion, in that train of Irun which descends in a
direct line toward the South, through the monotony of the interminable
moors. Near the right door he had installed himself in order to
see sooner the Bay of Biscay open and the highlands of Spain sketch
themselves.

Then, near Bayonne, he had been startled at the sight of the first
Basque caps, at the tall gates, the first Basque houses among the pines
and the oaks.

And at Saint-Jean-de-Luz at last, when he set foot on the soil, he
had felt like one drunk--After the mist and the cold already begun
in Northern France, he felt the sudden and voluptuous impression of
a warmer climate, the sensation of going into a hothouse. There was a
festival of sunlight that day; the southern wind, the exquisite southern
wind, blew, and the Pyrenees had magnificent tints on the grand, free
sky. Moreover, girls passed, whose laughter rang of the South and of
Spain, who had the elegance and the grace of the Basques--and who,
after the heavy blondes of the North, troubled him more than all these
illusions of summer.--But promptly he returned to himself: what was he
think