She had moved forward again, as if to take him by both hands: but faltered. "Yes, we have kept the lamp burning, Don Eugenio," she answered with a voice curiously strained. "My friends"--she turned to the young men--"rise and salute our guest of guests, Don Eugenio Fuentes!" "Fuentes!" "What are you telling us, Luisa? _The_ Fuentes? But it is impossible!" "Impossible! Fuentes comes no more to Salamanca." Nevertheless all had sprung to their feet, and Fuentes comprehended them all in an ironical bow. "That is the name by which I call myself, Sirs, since leaving the University." Luisa made a dumb signal, and one of the youths handed him a guitar. He struck but one chord to assure himself of its tune-- "_There's one that lives in Salamanca All up a dozen flights of stairs; There with the sparrows, night and morning, Under the roof she chirps her prayers. They say her wisdom comes from heaven_-- Will you not take a guitar, Señorita, and help me with the old song? _So near the clouds and chimneys meet_-- I _rather think Luisa's sparrows Fetch it aloft there from the street!_" Above all things women suspect and fear irony: it is not one of their weapons. Luisa glanced at Fuentes doubtfully, I could see, and with some pain in her doubt. But it was the old song, after all, and he was singing it _de bon coeur_. She caught up a guitar and chimed in with the second verse, taking up the soprano's part, while he at once obeyed and dropped from treble to alto-- _Which will you have? In la Verdura Pretty Luisa keeps a stall: Hands you a rose for your peseta, Nothing to pay but a thorn--that's all! King of her love, with no Prime Minister, Lord of an attic blithe I'd reign. But_ ay de mil! _from here to Finisterre Pretty Luisa loves all Spain_. His eyes, as he sang, were fastened on young Sebastian Paz, and she, noting them, played the verse to its ringing close, turned abruptly, and laid the guitar on the bed between the flower-baskets. [Illustration: SHE CAUGHT UP A GUITAR AND CHIMED IN.] "But I think it is business brings you here, Don Eugenio." He had stepped to the open lattice, and with an upward glance at the lamp, burning steadily in the windless air, leaned on the sill and looked out over the city. Somewhere below by the waterside a dull noise sounded--the thud of a falling beam. The French down there were working by lantern-light, clearing away the houses from their fortifications. "Yes, I come on business, and from Lord Wellington. The good citizens in Salamanca have ceased to write." "And small blame to them," one of the young men answered. "Small blame to them, I agree. And yet they must send news--this time to Lord Wellington, who knows better than to print it." His eyes interrogated Luisa, who raised hers at length to meet them.