ared that they would
never see each other again, she had in a veiled manner expressed her
belief that he was a coward, incapable of ruining himself for her.

The feverish eyes of Enrique Darles burned like coals. Why, indeed,
should he not steal? Why should he not prove himself brave, capable of
everything? At the basis of every great sacrifice lies something
superhuman, that confuses and that rends the soul. If he were a thief
and could pay with his bravery something that his small, poor money
could not buy; if he should ruin his whole career just to please her,
should bring down upon his head the rigors of the law and his father's
curses, Alicia--so he fondly believed--would love him blindly, with the
same sort of frenzy that Balzac's hero, Vautrin, inspired in women.

The voice which until now had been thundering accusations in the
student's storm-tossed conscience, now with soft flatterings began to
wheedle and cajole him, saying:

"Alicia, your beloved Alicia would be happy with the emeralds of that
necklace. If you have no way to buy it for her, go steal it! You're a
cowardly wretch if you don't! What does the opinion of the crowd matter
to you, egoist that you are? A man incapable of becoming a thief for a
woman may love her greatly, but he does not love her to distraction.
What your Alicia desires, you should give her. Have no longer any
doubts, but go and steal! Steal this necklace for her and then clasp it
about her neck--that neck whose snow so many times in the space of one
night offered its refreshing coolness to your lips!"

These ideas combined to strengthen his more recent impressions--the
impression of his visit to the dissecting-room where once more he had
seen that nothing matters; and the impression of that crime of jealousy
which he had heard talked about in the tavern. And all at once, Enrique
Darles felt himself calmed. His future had just been decided. He would
steal. Fatality, incarnate in the body of Alicia Pardo, had just mapped
out his road for him.

* * * * *

Every evening at sunset, at that hour of mystery when the street-lights
begin to shine and women to seem more beautiful, the student left his
lodgings and, passing through the Calle Romanos and the Calle Carmen,
took his way toward the Puerta del Sol, always full of an idle,
loitering crowd which seems to have nowhere to go. He always stopped in
Calle Mayor, to cast an eager, timorous look into the