as if she were fleeing from pursuit.

"Mariano! Master! He has gone! He has left me forever!"

Her voice was a wail; she threw her arms around him, burying her face in
his shoulder, wetting his beard with the tears that began to fall from
her eyes drop by drop.

Renovales, under the impulse of his surprise, repelled her gently and he
made her go back to her chair.

"Who has gone away? Who is it? Darwin?"

Yes; he. It was all over. The countess could hardly talk; a painful sob
interrupted her words. She was enraged to see herself deserted and her
pride trampled on; her whole body trembled. He had fled at the height of
their happiness, when she thought that she was surest of him, when they
enjoyed a liberty they had never known. He was tired of her; he still
loved her,--as he said in a letter,--but he wanted to be free to
continue his studies. He was grateful to her for her kindness, surfeited
with so much love, and he fled to go into seclusion abroad and become a
great man, not thinking any more about women. This was the purpose of
the brief lines he had sent her on his disappearance. A lie, an absolute
lie! She saw something else. The wretch had run away with a cocotte who
was the cynosure of all eyes on the beach at Biarritz. An ugly thing,
who had some vulgar charm about her, for all the men raved over her.
That young "sport" was tired of respectable people. He probably was
offended because she had not secured him the professorship, because he
had not been made a deputy. Heavens! How was she to blame for her
failure? Had she not done everything she could?

"Oh, Mariano. I know I am going to die. This is not love; I no longer
care for him. I detest him! It is rage, indignation. I would like to get
hold of the little whipper-snapper, to choke him. Think of all the
foolish things I have done for him. Heavens! Where were my eyes!"

As soon as she discovered that she had been deserted, her only thought
was to find her good friend, her counselor, her "brother," to go to
Madrid, to see Renovales and tell him everything, everything! impelled
by the necessity of confessing to him even secrets whose memory made her
blush.

She had no one in the world who loved her disinterestedly, no one except
the master, and with the panicky haste of a traveler who is lost at
night, in the midst of a desert, she had run to him, seeking warmth and
protection.

This longing for protection came back to her in the master's presence.
S