You understand?"

Sor Teresa turned in the doorway and looked at him.

He could not see the expression of her eyes, which were in deep shadow,
and she left him wondering whether she had understood or not.

It would seem that Sor Teresa, despite her slow dignity of manner, was a
quick person. For in a few moments the door of the waiting-room was again
opened and a young girl hastened breathlessly in. She was not more than
sixteen or seventeen, and as she came in she threw back her dark hair
with one hand.

"I was asleep, Uncle Ramon," she exclaimed with a light laugh, "and the
good Sister had to drag me out of bed before I would wake up. And then,
of course, I thought it was a fire. We have always hoped for a fire, you
know."

She was continuing to attend to her hasty dress as she spoke, tying the
ribbon at the throat of her gay dressing-gown with careless fingers.

"I had not even time to pull up my stockings," she concluded, making good
the omission with a friendly nonchalance. Then she turned to look at Sor
Teresa, but her eyes found instead the closed door.

"Oh!" she cried, "the good Sister has forgotten to come back with me. And
it is against the rules. What a joke! We are not allowed to see visitors
alone--except father or mother, you know. I don't care. It was not my
fault."

And she looked doubtfully from the door to Sarrion and back again to the
door. She was very young and gay and careless. Her cheeks still flushed
by the deep sleep of childhood were of the colour of a peach that has
ripened quickly in the glow of a southern sun. Her eyes were dark and
very bright; the bird-like shallow vivacity of childhood still sparkled
in them. It seemed that they were made for laughing, not for tears or
thought. She was the incarnation of youth and springtime. To find such
ignorance of the world, such innocence of heart, one must go to a nunnery
or to Nature.

"I came to see you to-night," said Sarrion, "as I may be leaving
Saragossa again to-morrow morning."

"And the good Sister allowed me to see you. I wonder why! She has been
cross with me lately. I am always breaking things, you know."

She spread out her hands with a gesture of despair.

"Yesterday it was an altar-vase. I tripped over the foot of that stupid
St. Andrew. Have you heard from papa?"

Sarrion hesitated for a moment at the sudden question.

"No," he answered at length.

"Oh! I wish he would come home from Cuba," said the girl, with a p