an some day that I am alive yet," he mumbled.

He accepted her assistance in silence, and the many days of pain went
by. Her appearances in the hut brought him relief and became connected
with the feverish dreams of angels which visited his couch; for Gaspar
Ruiz was instructed in the mysteries of his religion, and had even
been taught to read and write a little by the priest of his village. He
waited for her with impatience, and saw her pass out of the dark hut and
disappear in the brilliant sunshine with poignant regret. He discovered
that, while he lay there feeling so very weak, he could, by closing his
eyes, evoke her face with considerable distinctness. And this discovered
faculty charmed the long, solitary hours of his convalescence. Later on,
when he began to regain his strength, he would creep at dusk from his
hut to the house and sit on the step of the garden door.

In one of the rooms the mad father paced to and fro, muttering to
himself with short, abrupt laughs. In the passage, sitting on a
stool, the mother sighed and moaned. The daughter, in rough threadbare
clothing, and her white haggard face half hidden by a coarse manta,
stood leaning against the side of the door. Gaspar Ruiz, with his elbows
propped on his knees and his head resting in his hands, talked to the
two women in an undertone.

The common misery of destitution would have made a bitter mockery of a
marked insistence on social differences. Gaspar Ruiz understood this in
his simplicity. From his captivity amongst the Royalists he could give
them news of people they knew. He described their appearance; and when
he related the story of the battle in which he was recaptured the two
women lamented the blow to their cause and the ruin of their secret
hopes.

He had no feeling either way. But he felt a great devotion for that
young girl. In his desire to appear worthy of her condescension, he
boasted a little of his bodily strength. He had nothing else to boast
of. Because of that quality his comrades treated him with as great a
deference, he explained, as though he had been a sergeant, both in camp
and in battle.

"I could always get as many as I wanted to follow me anywhere, senorita.
I ought to have been made an officer, because I can read and write."

Behind him the silent old lady fetched a moaning sigh from time to time;
the distracted father muttered to himself, pacing the sala; and Gaspar
Ruiz would raise his eyes now and then to look