"I trust that you, sir, have slept well in my poor house." Cartaret replied that he had slept like a top. "And that you could eat of the little breakfast which my servants provided?" "I made a wonderful breakfast," said Cartaret. "It is good, sir. If you can bear with my house, it is yours for so long as you care to honor it with your presence." Cartaret knew that this must be only an exaggerated fashion of speech, but he chose to take it literally. "That's very good of you," he said. "I haven't ridden for years and I'm rather done up. If you really don't mind, I think I will rest here over another night." Don Ricardo seemed unprepared for this, but he checked a frown and bowed gravely. "A year would be too short for me," he vowed. They fell to talking, the host now trying to turn the conversation into the valley, the guest holding it fast to the castle-heights. "It is a beautiful place," said Cartaret; "I don't know when I've seen anything to compare with it; and yet I should think you'd find it rather lonely." "Not lonely, sir," said the Basque. "The hunting in the valley is a compensation. For example, where you see those oaks about the curve of that river, I hunted, not ten days ago, a wolf as large as those for which my ancestors paid the wolf-money." "Still," Cartaret persisted, "you do live here quite alone, don't you?" He knew that he was impudent, and he felt that only his host's reverence for the laws of hospitality prevented an open resentment. Nevertheless, Cartaret was bound to find out what he could, and this time he was rewarded. "There is good enough to live with me," said Don Ricardo stiffly, "my lady sister, the Doña Dolorez Eulalia Vitoria." He looked out across the chasm. Cartaret caught his breath. There was an awkward pause. Then, glancing up, he saw, coming toward them along the terrace, the figure of a woman-servant that seemed startlingly familiar. It was Chitta. She was bent, no doubt, on some household errand to her master, whose face was luckily turned away--luckily because, when she caught sight of Cartaret, her jaw dropped and her knees gave under her. Cartaret had just time to knit his brows with the most forbidding scowl he could assume. The old woman clasped her hands in what was plainly a prayer to him to be silent concerning all knowledge of her and her mistress. A moment more, and Don Ricardo was giving her orders in the Basque tongue. "Our servants," he said apologetically when she had gone, "are faithful, but stupid." His gray eyes peered at Cartaret searchingly. "Very stupid, sir," he added. "For instance, you, sir, know something of our customs; you know that centuries-old tradition--the best of laws--makes it the worst of social crimes for a Basque to marry any save a Basque----" He stopped short, holding Cartaret with his eyes. Cartaret nodded.