"But I thought that the apothecary said that he was to be kept absolutely quiet," said Sarrion, rising. "So he did. But he is only a man, you know, just like you and Marcos--and he doesn't understand." "Oh!" said Sarrion meekly, as he followed her. She led the way into Marcos' room. She was as fresh and rosy as the morning itself, with the delicate pink and white of the convent still in her cheeks. It was on Sarrion's face that the night's work had left its mark. "Here he is," she said. "He was not asleep. Is it a secret? I suppose it is--you have so many, you two." She laughed, and looked from one to the other. But neither answered her. "Shall I go away, Marcos?" she asked abruptly, turning towards the bed, as if she knew at all events that from him she would get a plain answer. And it came, uncompromisingly. "Yes," he said. She went to the door with a curt laugh and closed it behind her, with decision. Sarrion looked after her with a sudden frown. He looked for an instant as if he were about to suggest that Marcos might have made a different reply, and then decided to hold his peace. He was perhaps wise in his generation. Politeness never yet won a woman's love. Marcos had noted Juanita's lightness of heart. On recovering his senses the first use he had made of them was to observe her every glance and silence. There was no sign of present anxiety or of great emotion. The incident of the ring had no other meaning therefore, than a girlish love of novelty or a taste not hitherto made manifest, for personal ornament. It might have deceived any one less observant than Marcos; less in the habit of watching Nature and dumb animals. He was patient, however, and industrious in the collection of evidence against himself. And she had startled him by saying that she was grown-up; though he perceived soon after, that it was only a manner of speaking; for she was still careless and happy, without a thought of the future, as children are. These things, however, he kept to himself. He had not sent for his father to talk to him of Juanita. Men never discuss a woman in whom they are really interested, though fools do. "That horse didn't fall," said Marcos to his father. "He was thrown. There was a wire across the road." "There was none when I got there," replied Sarrion. "Then it had been removed. I saw it as we fell. My foot caught in it or I could have thrown myself clear in the usual way." Sarrion reflected a moment. "Let me look at the note that Zeneta wrote you," he said. "You will find it in my pocket, hanging behind the door. I was a fool. I was in too great a hurry. Now that I think of it, Zeneta would not have written a note like that." "Then he never wrote it at all," said Sarrion, who had found the paper and was reading it near the window. The clear morning light brought out the wrinkles and the crow's-feet with inexorable distinctness on his keen narrow face.