"I understand nerves," said Juanita lightly when she announced that Cousin Peligros' chair would remain vacant. "Was I not educated in a convent? You need not be anxious. Yes--she will take a little soup--a little more than that. And all the other courses." After dinner Cousin Peligros notified through her maid that she felt well enough to see Marcos. When he returned from this interview he joined Sarrion and Juanita in the drawing-room, and he looked grave. "You have seen for yourself that there is not much the matter with her," said Juanita, watching his face. "Yes," he answered rather absent-mindedly. "There is not much the matter with her." He did not sit down but stood with a preoccupied air and looked at the wood-fire which was still grateful in the evening at such an altitude as that of Torre Garda. "She will not stay," he said at last. "She says she is going to-morrow." Sarrion gave a short laugh and turned over the newspaper that he was reading. Juanita was reading an English book, with a dictionary which she never consulted when Marcos was near. She looked over its pages into the fire. "Then let her go," she said slowly and distinctly. And in a silence which followed, the colour slowly mounted to her face. Marcos glanced at her and spoke at once. "There is no question of doing anything else," he said, with a laugh that sounded uneasy. "She will have nerves until she sees a lamp-post again. She is going to Madrid." "Ah!" "And she wants you to go with her and stay," said Marcos, bluntly. "It is very kind of her," answered Juanita in a cool and even voice. "You know, I am afraid Cousin Peligros and I should not get on very well--not if we sat indoors for long together, and kept our hands white." "Then you do not care to go to Madrid with her?" inquired Marcos. Juanita seemed to weigh the pros and cons of the matter with her head at a measuring angle while she looked into the fire. "No ... No," she answered. "I think not, thank you." "You know," Marcos explained with an odd ring of excitement in his voice. "I am afraid we shall have a bad name all over Spain after this. They always did think that we were only brigands. It will be difficult to get anybody to come here." Juanita made no answer to this. Sarrion was reading the paper very attentively. But it was he who spoke first. "I must go to Saragossa," he said, without looking up from his paper. "Perhaps Juanita will take compassion on my solitude there." "I always feel that it is a pity to go away from Torre Garda just as the spring is coming," said she, conversationally. "Don't you think so?" She glanced at Marcos as she spoke, but the remark must have been addressed to Sarrion, whose reply was inaudible. For some reason the two men seemed ill at ease and tongue-tied. There was a dull glow in Marcos' eyes. Juanita was quite cool and collected and mistress of the situation.