better ...  But that climb!...  This offering had not had such good results as the previous ones, she thought; but she had faith:  the Virgin would be good to her and cure her in the end.  At the church door she collapsed from pain.  The recluse placed her on his chair and ran to the cistern to get a glass of water.  The Italian maid, her eyes bulging with fright, leaned over the poor woman, petting her: 

“Poverina!  Poverina!...  Coraggio!” The invalid, rallying from her swoon, opened her eyes and gazed vacantly at the stranger, not understanding her words but guessing their kindly intention.

The lady stepped out to the plazoleta, deeply moved, it seemed, by what she had been witnessing.  Rafael followed, with affected absent-mindedness, somewhat ashamed of his insistence, yet at the same time looking for an opportunity to renew their conversation.

On finding herself once more in the presence of that wonderful panorama, where the eye ran unobstructed to the very limit of the horizon, the charming creature seemed to breathe more freely.

“Good God!” she exclaimed, as if speaking to herself.  “How sad and yet how wonderful!  This view is ever so beautiful.  But that woman!...  That poor woman!”

“She’s been that way for years, to my personal knowledge,” Rafael remarked, pretending to have known the invalid for a long time, though he had scarcely ever deigned to notice her before.  “Our peasants are queer people.  They despise doctors, and refuse their help, preferring to kill themselves with these barbarous prayers and devotions, which they expect will do them good.”

“But they may be right, after all!” the lady replied.  “Disease is often incurable, and science can do for it about as much as faith—­sometimes, even less....  But here we are laughing and enjoying ourselves while suffering passes us by, rubs elbows with us even, without our noticing!"...

Rafael was at a loss for reply.  What sort of woman was this?  What a way she had of talking!  Accustomed as he was to the commonplace chatter of his mother’s friends, and still under the influence of this meeting, which had so deeply disturbed him, the poor boy imagined himself in the presence of a sage in skirts—­a philosopher under the disguise of female beauty come from beyond the Pyrenees, from some gloomy German alehouse perhaps, to upset his peace of mind.

The stranger was silent for a time, her gaze fixed upon the horizon.  Then around her attractive sensuous lips, through which two rows of shining, dazzling teeth were gleaming, the suggestion of a smile began to play, a smile of joy at the landscape.

“How beautiful this all is!” she exclaimed, without turning toward her companion.  “How I have longed to see it again!”

At last the opportunity had come to ask the question he had been so eager to put:  and she herself had offered the opportunity!

“Do you come from here?” he asked, in a tremulous voice, fearing lest his inquisitiveness be scornfully repelled.