ish twilight it was, he remembered, the sky, broadly
banded of orange and rose, was seen behind the highly piled houses. From
the whiteness of the long frontage, dots and flecks flashed out. Black
oblongs of glassless window-space splashed the white. Here and there a
hint of vivid colour flung itself out almost defiantly--a woman's red
petticoat drying on a cord, the green slats of a well-to-do
window-blind. There came to the ears of Ramon Garcia the click of
castanets from the semi-dark of wide-arched doors, and the soft
tink-a-tank of lightly thrummed guitars. He saw a lover or two "eating
iron," his hands clasping the bars behind which was the listening ear of
his mistress.

And throughout this village were peace and well-accustomed pleasance.
Ramon smiled. It was his home.

But not as he smiled up among the rocks of the Montblanch on the
borderlands betwixt Aragon and Catalunia.

He smiled well-pleased and minded him upon the nights not so long gone
by, when he too had "eaten iron," and clung a-tip-toe to the window-bars
of little Dolores, who lent him such a shy attention, scuttling off like
a mouse at the least stirring within the house where all her kinsfolk
slept.

There was none like her, his little Dolores! God had given her to a
rough old fellow like him, one who had endured the trampling of the
threshing floor as the car oxen drave round.

Little Dolores, how all the men had been wild to have her, but she had
loved none but Ramon Garcia alone! So said Manuela Durio, the
go-between, the priest's housekeeper, and if any did, she knew. Indeed,
there was little told at confession that she did not know. Ramon smiled
again, a wicked, knowing smile. For if Manuela owned the legitimate
fifty years which qualified her for a place in the Presbytery of Sarria
de la Plana, eyes and lips belied her official age. Anyway, she kept the
priest's conscience--and--what was more important, she swore that little
Dolores loved Ramon Garcia and Ramon Garcia alone.

"Caballero! Don Ramon!"

He started. He had been thinking of the woman at that very moment, and
there was her voice calling him. He turned about. The broad rose-glow
had deepened to the smoky ruby of a Spanish gloaming, as it lingered
along the western hill-tops. These last shone, in spite of the glowing
darkness, with a limpid and translucent turquoise like that of the
distant landscape in a Siennese picture.

"Don Ramon! wait--I would speak with you!"

It