‘I do not much mind what the rest of the world thinks of me,’ he said; ‘I have never owed anything to the world nor asked anything from it. They are welcome to think what they like. But with you it is different. Is it possible, señorita, to make you trust me?’ Estella did not answer at once. After a pause she gave an indifferent jerk of the head. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘If it is possible, I will do it.’ ‘It is quite easy,’ she answered, raising her head and looking out of the window with an air that seemed to indicate that her interests lay without and not in this room at all. ‘How can I do it?’ She gave a short, hard laugh, which to experienced ears would have betrayed her instantly. ‘By showing me the letter you wrote to Julia Barenna,’ she said. ‘I cannot do that.’ ‘No,’ she said significantly. A woman fighting for her own happiness is no sparing adversary. ‘Will nothing else than the sight of that letter satisfy you, señorita?’ Her profile was turned towards him—delicate and proud, with the perfect chiselling of outline that only comes with a long descent, and bespeaks the blood of gentle ancestors. For Estella Vincente had in her veins blood that was counted noble in Spain—the land of a bygone glory. ‘Nothing,’ she answered. ‘Though the question of my being satisfied is hardly of importance. You asked me to trust you, and you make it difficult by your actions. In return I ask a proof, that is all.’ ‘Do you want to trust me?’ He had come a little closer to her, and was grave enough now. ‘Why do you ask that?’ she inquired in a low voice. ‘Do you want to trust me?’ he asked, and it is to be supposed that he was able to detect an infinitesimal acquiescent movement of her head. ‘Then, if that letter is in existence, you shall have it,’ he said. ‘You say that my actions have borne evidence against me. I shall trust to action and not to words to refute that evidence. But you must give me time—will you do that?’ ‘You always ask something.’ ‘Yes, señorita, from you; but from no one else in the world.’ He gave a sudden laugh and walked to the window, where he stood looking at her. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘I shall be asking all my life from you. Perhaps that is why we were created, señorita—I to ask, you to give. Perhaps that is happiness, Estella.’ She raised her eyes but did not meet his, looking past him through the open window. The hotel was situated at the lower end of the Puerta del Sol—the quiet end, and farthest removed from the hum of the market and the busy sounds of traffic. These only came in the form of a distant hum, like the continuous roar of surf upon an unseen shore. Below the windows a passing waterseller plied his trade, and his monotonous cry of ‘Agua-a-a! Agua-a-a!’ rose like a wail—like the voice of one crying in that human wilderness where solitude reigns as surely as in the desert.