Then there came a footstep and a voice, two voices, both of them she knew. They were safe--her husband and her brother. What mattered defeat and shame, they might be retrieved, but from death there is no return. A wild joy succeeded to her anxious sorrow, she started to her feet; as she reached the folding-doors, her husband stood before her, but oh! so changed. Dripping wet--for it was raining heavily,--with clothes torn and covered with mud, his face pale and haggard, his eyes deep sunk in his head; but for his voice she would scarce have known him. "Isidro!" she exclaimed, opening her arms to him. But he shrank from her, and, throwing himself upon the sofa, buried his face in the cushions. "Do not touch me, do not come near me," he said, as she bent over him. "You know not what has happened." "The English have been too strong for you," said Doña Dalmacia, seating herself beside him, and laying one soft arm on his neck. "They were few, and we fled from them like sheep, like sheep. We are disgraced for ever. Never more shall we dare to look them in the face." "You are tired; to-morrow will be another day." "Ah! Dalma, if you only knew how they made us march; all the blessed day without a morsel to eat and nothing but muddy water to drink," said Don Isidro, raising himself on his elbow and venturing at last to look at his wife. What he saw in her face was a tender look of pity and of sympathy. "Are you not ashamed of me, Dalma?" he asked her, with a brightening eye. "I am a runaway and a coward. Are you not ashamed of me, Dalma?" "You are no coward, Isidro," said Doña Dalmacia, throwing her arms round his neck; "you are tired and have eaten nothing; to-morrow will be another day." Don Isidro bowed his head upon her shoulder, and for a minute there was silence between them. Don Felipe Navarro, who had come in with his brother-in-law, had thrown himself wearily into an arm-chair. "Yes, Dalma, my sister," said he, "to-morrow will be another day, and we without an army shall have all the invaders upon us. Those we saw to-day were only the vanguard." "Without an army," exclaimed Doña Dalmacia, looking round at him with a fresh terror in her eyes. "Have then so many fallen? And the Reconquistador, what has become of him?" "Of Liniers I know nothing. We have not many killed, but the army is dispersed," replied Don Felipe. "We have no hope now, for there is no confidence," said Don Isidro. "All the fight was without order; it may be said that there was no fight. We were not beaten, we ran away because we did not know what to do."