“And now what we need to enliven this detestable place is the presence of Beauty herself. Our worthy friends should be back soon—bringing their sheaves with them, let us hope, for otherwise matters will be complicated. Let me see: have I thought of everything, for in such affairs one oversight—He is a Catholic, therefore can contract a legal marriage under the Proclamations—it was lucky I remembered that point of law, though it nearly cost us all our lives—and the priest, I can lay my hands on him, a discreet man, who won’t hear if the lady says No, but filled beyond a question with the power and virtue of his holy office. No, I have nothing to reproach myself with in the way of precaution, nothing at all. I have sown the seed well and truly, it remains only for Providence to give the increase, or shall I say—no, I think not, for between the general and the private familiarity is always odious. Well, it is time that you met with a little success and settled down, for you have worked hard, Juan, my friend, and you are getting old—yes, Juan, you are getting old. Bah! what a hole and what weather!” and Montalvo established himself by the fireside to doze away his _ennui_. When Adrian shut the door behind him the late November day was drawing to its close, and between the rifts in the sullen snow clouds now and again an arrow from the westering sun struck upon the tall, skeleton-like sails of the mill, through which the wind rushed with a screaming noise. Adrian had intended to walk on the marsh, but finding it too sodden, he crossed the western dyke by means of a board laid from bank to bank, and struck into the sand-dunes beyond. Even in the summer, when the air was still and flowers bloomed and larks sang, these dunes were fantastic and almost unnatural in appearance, with their deep, wind-scooped hollows of pallid sand, their sharp angles, miniature cliffs, and their crests crowned with coarse grasses. But now, beneath the dull pall of the winter sky, no spot in the world could have been more lonesome or more desolate, for never a sign of man was to be seen upon them and save for a solitary curlew, whose sad note reached Adrian’s ears as it beat up wind from the sea, even the beasts and birds that dwelt there had hidden themselves away. Only the voices of Nature remained in all their majesty, the drear screams and moan of the rushing wind, and above it, now low and now voluminous as the gale veered, the deep and constant roar of the ocean.