res, even if his arrival
has been expected.

Her voice came breathlessly, broken. Mamma was talking with her; she was
amusing her with the hope of a trip in the near future,--and all at once
a hoarse sound,--her head bent forward before it fell onto her
shoulder--a moment--nothing--just like a little bird.

Renovales ran to the bedroom, bumping into his friend Cotoner who came
out of the dining-room, running too. They saw her in an armchair,
shrunken, wilted, in the deathly abandon that converts the body into a
limp mass. All was over.

Milita had to catch her father, to hold him up. She had to be the one
who kept her calmness and energy at the critical moment. Renovales let
his daughter lead him; he rested his face on her shoulder, with sublime,
dramatic grief, with beautiful, artistic despair, still holding
absent-mindedly in his hand the letter of the countess.

"Courage, Mariano," said poor Cotoner, his voice choked with tears. "We
must be men. Milita, take your father to the studio. Don't let him see
her."

The master let his daughter guide him, sighing deeply, trying in vain to
weep. The tears would not come. He could not concentrate his attention;
a voice within him was distracting him,--the voice of temptation.

She was dead and he was free. He would go on his way, light-hearted,
master of himself, relieved of troublesome hindrances. Before him lay
life with all its joys, love without a fear or a scruple; glory with its
sweet returns.

Life was going to begin again.

PART III

I

Until the beginning of the following winter Renovales did not return to
Madrid. The death of his wife had left him stunned, as if he doubted its
reality, as if he felt strange at finding himself alone and master of
his actions. Cotoner, seeing that he had no ambition for work and would
lie on the couch in the studio with a blank expression on his face, as
if he were in a waking dream, interpreted his condition as a deep,
silent grief. Besides, it irritated him that as soon as Josephina was
dead, the countess began to come to the house frequently to see the
master and her dear Milita.

"You ought to go away,"--the old artist advised. "You are free; you will
be just as well off anywhere as here. What you need is a long journey;
that will take your mind off your trouble."

And Renovales started on his journey with the eagerness of a school-boy,
free for the first time from the vigilance of a family. Alone, ric