Sarrion was the first to speak.
“Poor Mon,” he said, half addressing Juanita.
“He was never a fortunate man. He took
the wrong turning years ago. He abandoned the
Church in order to ask a woman to marry him.
But she had scruples. She thought, or she was
made to think, that her duty lay in another direction.
And Mon’s life ... well ...!”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I know,” said Juanita quietly ... “all
about it.”
The casting vote
There is in one corner of the little churchyard of
Torre Garda a square
mound which marks the burial-place, in one grave,
of four hundred
Carlists. The Wolf, it is said, carried as many
more to the sea.
General Pacheco completed his teaching at the mouth
of the valley where the Carlists had left in a position
(impregnable from the front) a strong detachment to
withstand the advance of any reinforcements that might
be sent from Pampeluna to the relief of Captain Zeneta
and his handful of men. These were taken in the
rear by the force under General Pacheco himself and
annihilated. This is, however, a matter of history
as is also the reputation of Pacheco. “A
great general—a brute,” they say of
him in Spain to this day.
By sunset all was quiet again at Torre Garda.
The troops quitted the village as unobtrusively as
they had come. They had lost but few men and
half a dozen wounded were left behind in the village.
The remainder were moved to Pampeluna. The Carlist
list of wounded was astonishingly small. General
Pacheco had the reputation of moving quickly.
He was rarely hampered by his ambulance and never
by the enemy’s wounded. He was a great
general.
Cousin Peligros did not appear at dinner. She
had an attack of nerves instead.
“I understand nerves,” said Juanita lightly
when she announced that Cousin Peligros’ chair
would remain vacant. “Was I not educated
in a convent? You need not be anxious. Yes—she
will take a little soup—a little more than
that. And all the other courses.”
After dinner Cousin Peligros notified through her
maid that she felt well enough to see Marcos.
When he returned from this interview he joined Sarrion
and Juanita in the drawing-room, and he looked grave.
“You have seen for yourself that there is not
much the matter with her,” said Juanita, watching
his face.
“Yes,” he answered rather absent-mindedly.
“There is not much the matter with her.”
He did not sit down but stood with a preoccupied air
and looked at the wood-fire which was still grateful
in the evening at such an altitude as that of Torre
Garda.
“She will not stay,” he said at last.
“She says she is going to-morrow.”
Sarrion gave a short laugh and turned over the newspaper
that he was reading. Juanita was reading an English
book, with a dictionary which she never consulted
when Marcos was near. She looked over its pages
into the fire.
