the gutter in Spain to-day."

And Marcos always followed his father's advice. Later he found that Spain
indeed offered no career to honest men at this time. Gradually he
supplanted his father in an unrecognised, indefinable monarchy in the
Valley of the Wolf; and there, in the valley, they waited; as good
Spaniards have waited these hundred years until such time as God's wrath
shall be overpast.

"I have a long story to tell you," said the Count, when his son returned
and sat down at once with a keen appetite to his first breakfast of
coffee and bread. "And I will tell it without comment, without prejudice,
if I can."

Marcos nodded. The Count had lighted a cigarette and now leant against
the window which opened on to the heavily barred balcony overlooking the
Calle San Gregorio.

"Four nights ago," he said, "at about midnight, Francisco de Mogente
returned secretly to Saragossa. I think he was coming to this house; but
we shall never know that. No one knew he was coming--not even Juanita."

The Count glanced at his son only long enough to note the passage of a
sort of shadow across his dark eyes at the mention of the schoolgirl's
name.

"Francisco was attacked in the street down there, at the corner of the
Calle San Gregorio, and was killed," he concluded.

Marcos rose and crossed the room towards the window. He was, it appeared,
an eminently practical man, and desired to see the exact spot where
Mogente had fallen before the story went any farther. Perro went so far
as to push his plebeian head through the bars and look down into the
street. It was his misfortune to fall into the fault of excess as it is
the misfortune of most parvenus.

"Does Juanita know?" asked Marcos.

"Yes. My sister Dolores has told her. Poor child! It is more in the
nature of a disappointment than a sorrow. Her heart is young; and
disappointment is the sorrow of the young."

Marcos sat down again in silence.

"We must remember," said the Count, "that she never knew him. It will
pass. I saw the incident from this window. There is no door at this side
of the house. I should, as you know, have had to go round by the Paseo
del Ebro. To render help was out of the question. I went down afterwards,
however, when help had come and the dying man had been carried away--by a
friar, Marcos! I had seen something fall from the hand of the murdered
man. I went down into the street and picked it up. It was the sword-stick
which Juanita sent to h