"For, of course, he left me, señor. I have learned since it is the way--you whites, you always leave. He went back to his Spain. He was to return in a year. The year passed and he did not come back. Then another and another. It was many years before he returned. The little hut in the bamboos by the river sagged, drooped, rotted; till there was left nothing but the four big corner-posts of narra standing upright, with between them a little mound upon which the grass grew high, a little mound like a grave, the grave of our love. I grew old with the waiting, the longing; my heart was all alone, all alone; and when he landed again, in the green dawn, one day, he did not know the woman squatting on the beach, so near that one of his soldiers pushed her away with his foot to let him pass. He came not alone, señor. With him was a white woman, his wife, with eagle nose and proud bearing and skin like the flesh of the coconut. He did not allow his soldiers to carry her, but went in himself, all booted, to the hips in the surf. His arm went around her waist; but, señor, she only looked that her dress would not touch the water. And I knew within me that when he had forsaken me for her, love had lost. "I did not die, señor, although I thought I would as I sat there long after he had gone, sat there through the biting of the midday sun till the poisoned breath of the night blew into my face. I went back to my hut and lived. I lived as others; I married, I bore children. These children have borne children; their children have borne children. I lived, but I did not love. "And he, he also lived, and his wife had children. He lived, but he did not love, señor. "And thus year passed after year. I saw him little. Once, at sundown, as I was crossing the plaza the portals of his stone mansion clanged open and his carriage rolled out. I saw them pass, he and his wife, she straight and proud, he leaning forward a little, as if tired, and as long as the carriage was in sight I saw them, side by side, but both looking straight ahead--far, far ahead, as if seeking something--and not once at each other. And he, he saw me not at all. "One night, señor, the baguio swept the land, as it will to-day soon. There were shrieks all night, and the sea-roar and the tree-roar filled the darkness. "And, in the morning, señor, as the sun rose upon the ruins of the night, there was noise and crying and a moving to and fro among the people of the pueblo. Squads of soldiers tramped about, taos beat the bush, and bloodhounds sniffed the ground. People whispered that the Commandant had left his house in the evening and had not yet returned. "They found him, señor, in the bamboos by the river, midst the rotting remains of an old hut. One of the big corner posts had fallen upon him, and he lay there dead, stretched across the grass-grown mound that looked like a grave.