“What made me a caucho outlaw?” he queried, whipping his big hand through the flying swarm about his face. “A woman! What sends most wandering men down the false trails of the world? What drove you, comrade? Perhaps a woman! _Quien sabe?_ I loved a girl. She had eyes like night--lips of fire--she was as sweet as life. See my hand tremble! Señor, it was years ago--five, maybe ten, I don’t remember--what are years? We were married, and had a cottage on a grassy hill above the bay, where the wind blew, and we could see the white ripples creeping up the sand. Then a sailor came from over the sea; a naval man, Señor, of your country. He had seen the world; he could fascinate women--and women change their love. She walked with me along the beach in the twilight. The wind tossed her hair. I repeated gossip, accused her of loving this man I had never seen. She acknowledged her love; proudly, I thought bravely; surely without shame. Señor, with these same hands I forced her to her knees, stifled her cry--and slowly, slowly watched the great staring eyes grow fixed and awful--the lips fall wide--” “You strangled her?” burst from Señor in passionate force. “I was a fiend,” went on the Spaniard. “I felt nothing except that her love had changed. I fled over the seas. For long my mind was dark, but clearness came, and with it truth. How I knew it I can’t say--these things abide in mystery--but my girl was innocent. Then hell gaped for me. Burning days--endless nights under the hateful stars--no rest--her last cry, like the Perde-alma, Señor--her great, wide eyes--the beat, the beat, the eternal beat of pain, made him you see a thing of iron and stone. “What was left, Señor? Only a wild life. You see the wanderer with crimes on him thick as his gray hairs. Ah! What I might have done--might have been! I see that in your eyes. What a man might have been! Holy Mercy! A braver part no man ever had chance to play. I could have left her free. I would not have heard the hound of remorse ever baying my trail. I could have hidden like a stricken deer, and died alone. But I was a blind coward. Men see differently after years go by. What is love? What is this thing that makes one woman all of life to a man? Constant or fickle, she is fair to him. Bound or free, she answers to nameless force.” “Where did you--all this happen?” asked Señor hurriedly and low. “It was at Malaga, on the Mediterranean.” Señor stalked off into the gloom, whispering.