Gradually, Raul sensed relief. Shifting in his chair he inspected the servants who had been watching. Lucienne ordered Marta to clean up, and the bloody towels and bowl disappeared. Peza, still grumbling, went outside for a cigarette. For the moment, the cool, long room, with its gray shuttered windows, belonged to Raul and Lucienne. She helped him to her sofa, backed him with pillows and opened windows. A glass between her fingers, she sipped and talked. The sea rolled its watery sound. Raul let his eyes close, and tried to imagine he had no branding iron of pain. "... Two men died at the mill, when beams dropped and part of the mill fell on them. You remember Ortiz and Gonzales?" She was dressed in dark gray, a flowing pleated skirt with a pleated jacket. "... The men are lying in the chapel.... "... Jesús is going back to Colima right away. He's worried." He tried to say he was worried about Petaca but he couldn't manage a word. "Some of the chapel walls have cracked," she said, still standing by him. Voices outside the house rose: a man shouted and boys began an altercation; a dog started barking. Lucienne sat on the sofa, touched his face, his hands. For a second, she felt he was hers and the illusion pleased her; the day's trials dropped away and left her thinking of another day, on the beach. Tide low, they had walked to a cove where red-barked trees shaded the sand. Some baby manta rays had been washed onto the beach; seagulls flew low ... Raul had said.... Jesús was saying goodbye. "Goodbye, Jesús," said Lucienne. "Thank you so much. I hope everything's all right at your home in Colima, with your family. Tell the padre about Ortiz and Gonzales. Perhaps he can send someone to bury them tomorrow. If not, we'll bury them without a priest. What else can we do?" Jesús wore boots of brown English leather and seemed to be memorizing their creases as Lucienne spoke. His small figure, in neat khaki trousers and blue shirt, looked pitiful. When he had gone, Raul had a cognac. He asked himself whether any bones had been broken? By the shot or by the fall, when he hurled himself from the saddle. A white peacock perched in a long open window. It was quiet now and the surf-sound fumbled over the dark furnishings, desks, tables, chairs and sofas from the 70's. Things had not been well cared for and yet their good craftsmanship fought neglect and climate. The woods were mahogany, oak, rosamorada and magnolia. On the walls hung Directoire prints, oil portraits and a poor copy of an Ingres nude, all of them palely lit by a brass center lamp that swung from the ceiling on a brass chain. "Are you feeling any better?" she asked, from a high armchair. "How far you had to ride to get here. Manuel is wonderful to you...." "We should have been more alert." "You can't always be," she said. "I suppose not. Anything can happen in the campo."