we
had stopped to ask the way of men who carried strange implements like
fire-extinguishers, for this was Bailen; but now, instead of receiving our
first glimpse of Andalucia, we were leaving it behind.

Eighty miles out of two hundred and seventy we had come, though the pace
had not been good. Still the rain was ceasing, and we could make up for
lost time, as country traffic had not begun yet.

La Carolina, Santa Elena; the road was mounting for the well-remembered
defile of Despenaperros. Hoot! went the siren, screaming along the face of
tremendous cliffs, and a louder shriek rang as if an echo. A line of fire
down in the gorge meant the train from Madrid to Seville. It glittered
like a string of stars drawn across a spider's-web viaduct, then vanished
into a tunnel, while we swept on towards the plains of La Mancha, Ropes
crouched like a goblin over his wheel.

Rain again, blurring villages, and sweeping through the stone streets of a
town: fields once more, and at last Manzanares. There Dick insisted that
we should stop for food, lest strength fail me when I should need it most;
but I could not bear to go back to the _fonda_ I knew, to see the pretty
girls there look at my pale face with shocked eyes, perhaps to have them
question me about the "white and gold angel."

It was eight o'clock when we got away from the cafe, where we had spent
some twenty minutes; and the road was no longer clear. We were obliged to
moderate our speed, and lost more time than we could afford getting on to
Aranjuez.

"Do your best now, Ropes," I was saying, when the Gloria--for once
perverse--burst a tyre with a loud explosion. Ropes threw me a rueful look.

"I'd hoped to get through without trouble, sir," he said, "but the car's
lain up for more than five weeks, and there was no time last night to look
her over."

"You've done splendidly," I assured him. "I'll get out with Mr. Waring and
stretch my legs."

I was glad to walk, and still more glad to feel that instead of being
exhausted as Dick had prophesied, strength seemed coming back. As we
strolled up and down, so sure was I of Dick's sympathy that I began to
talk about my hopes and fears. He did not disappoint me, but once or twice
he answered absent-mindedly, with a far-off look in his eyes, and
suddenly, with a pang of remorse, I remembered that I had not once
referred to the progress of his love affairs. My own had preoccupied me to
the exclusion of everything outside, an