“You are not going there, I suppose?” asks Arrochkoa, pointing to the church. “No, oh, no,” replies Ramuntcho, sombrely decided. “Well come then, let us go in here and taste the new cider of your country!--” To the smugglers' cider mill, he brings him; both, near the open window, sit as formerly, looking outside;--and this place also, these old benches, these casks in a line in the back, these same images on the wall, are there to recall to Ramuntcho the delicious times of the past, the times that are finished. The weather is adorably beautiful; the sky retains a rare limpidity; through the air passes that special scent of falling seasons, scent of woods despoiled, of dead leaves that the sun overheats on the soil. Now, after the absolute calm of the morning, rises a wind of autumn, a chill of November, announcing clearly, but with a melancholy almost charming, that the winter is near--a southern winter, it is true, a softened winter, hardly interrupting the life of the country. The gardens and all the old walls are still ornamented with roses--! At first they talk of indifferent things while drinking their cider, of Ramuntcho's travels, of what happened in the country during his absence, of the marriages which occurred or were broken. And, to those two rebels who have fled from the church, all the sounds of the mass come during their talk, the sounds of the small bells and the sounds of the organ, the ancient songs that fill the high, sonorous nave-- At last, Arrochkoa returns to the burning subject: “Oh, if you had been here it would not have occurred!--And even now, if she saw you--” Ramuntcho looks at him then, trembling at what he imagines he understands: “Even now?--What do you mean?” “Oh, women--with them, does one ever know?--She cared a great deal for you and it was hard for her.--In these days there is no law to keep her there!--How little would I care if she broke her vows--” Ramuntcho turns his head, lowers his eyes, says nothing, strikes the soil with his foot. And, in the silence, the impious thing which he had hardly dared to formulate to himself, seems to him little by little less chimerical, attainable, almost easy.--No, it is not impossible to regain her. And, if need be, doubtless, Arrochkoa, her own brother, would lend a hand. Oh, what a temptation and what a new disturbance in his mind--! Drily he asks, “Where is she?--Far from here?” “Far enough, yes. Over there, toward Navarre, five or six hours of a carriage drive. They have changed her convent twice. She lives at Amezqueta now, beyond the oak forests of Oyanzabal; the road is through Mendichoco; you know, we must have gone through it together one night with Itchoua.”