at night and in my house, dishonoring your father and offending God. And I from my room saw the light in yours, and believed that you were wakeful and working. You wretched little thing, while you were in the garden that light in your room was wasting, burning uselessly. You miserable woman!' Oh, señor soldier, I could not contain my indignation. I seized her by the arm and dragged her along to throw her out. In my anger I knew not what I did. The wretched girl begged my pardon, saying, 'I love him, father, I cannot deny that I love him.' My fury was redoubled at this, and I cried, 'Cursed be the bread that I have given you for nineteen years, to invite thieves into my house! Cursed be the hour when you were born, and the linens in which we wrapped you on the third of February in the year '91! Sooner shall the heavens fall, sooner shall the Virgin del Pilar let me go from her hand, than I will again be your father, and you be for me the Mariquilla that I have so much loved!' "I had scarcely said this, señor, when it seemed as if the very heavens were rent in pieces, falling upon my house. What a terrible noise it was! A bomb fell upon the roof, and within five minutes two others fell. We ran in; the flames were spreading hungrily, and the falling of the roof threatened to bury us where we stood. We tried in great haste to save some few little things; but it was not possible. This house, this house which I bought in the year '87 for almost nothing, because the mortgage on it was foreclosed against a debtor who owed me five thousand reales with thirteen thousand reales interest,--this house was fairly crumbling to bits. Over there a plank fell; over there a pane of glass leaped out; on the side yonder the walls burst in. The cat yowled, and Doña Guedita fairly clawed me in the face as we got out of the room. I ventured into my own room to try to get some little receipts, and came near perishing." Candiola's distress and moral suffering made it seem as if he had a nervous disorder. It was plain to be seen that terror and grief had completely upset him. His talkativeness was not of the sort that soothes the soul, it was a nervous overflow; and although he appeared to talk with me, he was in reality addressing himself to invisible beings. To judge by his gestures, they talked to him in turn. He went on talking, and answering questions which his imaginary interlocutors were asking him.