ir lances,
and the rich curtain with its innumerable folds that hung from the
vaulting down to the platform of the monument.

On the evening of Holy Thursday Gabriel stood considering what was
in some sense his work, surrounded by a group of worshippers. The
Cathedral shone with its immaculate whiteness, in spite of the black
veils that covered both statues and altars. The clouds of colour from
the lovely rose windows relieved the funereal aspect of the religious
ceremony, while from the choir a tenor voice intoned the lamentations
of the oriental prophet.

Gabriel felt someone pulling his jacket, and turning, saw the
gardener's widow.

"Come, nephew, we have got her here; she is waiting for you in the
cloister."

Coming out, the Senora Tomasa pointed to a woman sitting crouched on
the stone coping of the garden, wrapped in an old cloak, and with the
headkerchief drawn down over her eyes.

Gabriel would never have recognised her. He remembered the pretty
smiling face of former years, and he looked almost with horror at
the tarnished youth, haggard with prominent cheek-bones, of the face
before him. The eyes deep sunk in the sockets without eyebrows or
eyelashes, with the pupils still beautiful, but dulled with a glassy
opacity. Everything about her revealed poverty and desolation; the
dress was a summer one, and from under it showed her split boots much
too large for her feet.

"Salute him, child," said the old woman. "It is your Uncle Gabriel,
one of God's angels, in spite of his misfortunes, and you owe it to
him that we searched for you."

The gardener's widow pushed Sagrario towards her Uncle, but the young
woman lowered her head, moved her shoulders and drew back, as though
she could not endure the presence of a member of her family; she
covered her face with her wretched cloak to hide her tears.

"Aunt, let us go home," said Gabriel, "it is not good for the child to
be here."

At the cloister staircase they made the young woman pass on in front;
she went up with her head bent and without looking, as though her feet
trod those broken steps instinctively.

"We arrived from Madrid this morning," said the gardener's widow as
they went up. "I kept her at an inn till it was time to bring her to
the Cathedral in the evening. It is the best time, for Esteban is in
the choir, and you will have time to settle things here. I spent three
days there. Ay, Gabriel, my son, what things I have seen, what hells
there