Larralde smiled in rather a sickly way and made no answer. He turned and looked down the avenue. ‘I see Father Concha approaching,’ he said; ‘let us go towards the house.’ CHAPTER XIV A WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE ‘The woman who loves you is at once your detective and accomplice.’ THE old priest was walking leisurely up the avenue towards the Casa Barenna when the branches of a dwarf ilex were pushed aside, and there came to him from their leafy concealment, not indeed a wood-nymph, but Señora Barenna, with her finger at her lips. ‘Hush!’ she said; ‘he is here.’ And from the anxious and excited expression of her face it became apparent that madame’s nerves were astir. ‘Who is here?’ ‘Why, Esteban Larralde, of course.’ ‘Ah!’ said Concha patiently. ‘But need we for that hide behind the bushes and walk on the flower borders? Life would be much simpler, señora, if people would only keep to the footpath. Less picturesque, I allow you, but simpler. Shall I climb up a tree?’ The lady cast her eyes up to heaven and heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘Ah—what a tragedy life is!’ she whispered, apparently to the angels, but loud enough for her companion to hear. ‘Or a farce,’ said Concha, ‘according to our reading of the part. Where is Señor Larralde?’ ‘Oh, he has gone to the fruit garden with Julia—there is a high wall all round, and one cannot see. She may be murdered by this time. I knew he was coming from the manner in which she ran downstairs. She walks at other times.’ Concha smiled rather grimly. ‘She is not the first to do that,’ he said, ‘and many have stumbled on the stairs in their haste.’ ‘Ah! You are a hard man—a terrible man with no heart. And I have no one to sympathise with me. No one knows what I suffer. I never sleep at night—not a wink—but lie and think of my troubles. Julia will not obey me. I have warned her not to rouse me to anger—and she laughs at me. She persists in seeing this terrible Esteban Larralde—a Carlist, if you please.’ ‘We are all as God made us,’ said Concha—’with embellishments added by the Evil One,’ he added, in a lower tone. ‘And now I am going to see General Vincente. I shall tell him to send soldiers. This man’s presence is intolerable—I am not obeyed in my own house,’ cried the lady. ‘I have ordered the carriage to meet me at the lower gate. I dare not drive away from my own door. Ah! what a tragedy!’ ‘I will go with you, since you are determined to go,’ said Concha. ‘What! And leave Julia here with that terrible man?’ ‘Yes,’ answered the priest. ‘Happiness is a dangerous thing to meddle with. There is so little of it in the world, and it lasts so short a time.’ Señora Barenna indicated by a sigh and her attitude that she had had no experience in the matter. As a simple fact, she had been enabled all through her life to satisfy her own desires—the subtlest form of misfortune.