ms along the railway-line, gradually changed to a glow of warmth in
the caressing arms of his wife. Body and soul both fell asleep there in
the comfort of a happy and sensual well-being.

II

It hardly takes more than a couple of years of married life to age a
docile man; or at least--about the same thing--to fill him with those
forward-looking ideas of caution, economy and peace that sow the seed of
fear for the morrow, in quiet souls.

One time Zureda was laid up a while with a bad cold. Getting better of
this, the engineer on a momentous night spoke seriously to his wife
concerning their future. His bronzed face lying on the whiteness of the
pillows brought out the salience of his cheek-bones and the strength of
his profile. The vertical furrow between his brows seemed deeper than
ever, cut into the serene gravity of his forehead. His wife listened to
him attentively, sitting on the edge of the bed, with one leg crossed
over the other. She cradled the upper knee between joined hands.

Slowly the engineer's talk unwound itself, to the effect that life is a
poor thing at best, constantly surrounded by misfortunes that can strike
us in an infinitude of ways. To-day it's a cold draft, to-morrow a chill
or a sore throat, or maybe a cancer, that death uses to steal our lives
away. All about us, yawning like immense jaws, the earth is always
opening, the earth into which all of us must some time descend; and in
this very swift and savagely universal hecatomb no one can be sure of
witnessing both the rising and the setting of the same day.

"I'm not afraid of work, you know," went on Zureda, "but engines are
made of iron, and even so they wear out at last and get tired of
running. Men are just the same. And when it happens to me, as it's got
to, some day, what'll become of us, then?"

Calmly Rafaela shook her head. She by no means shared her husband's
fears. No doubt Amadeo's sickness had made him timorous and pessimistic.

"I think you're making it worse than it really is," she answered. "Old
age is still a long way off; and, besides, very likely we'll have
children to help us."

Zureda's gesture was a negation.

"That don't matter," he replied. "Children may not come at all; and even
if they do, what of that? As for old age being far off, you're wrong.
Even to-day, do you think I've got the strength and quickness, or even
the enjoyment in my work, that I had when I was twenty-five? Not on your
life! Old a