"I never said I did not love you, but only that we can meet no more—like this."
"It is the same thing."
"No, it is not the same thing, foolish boy. I may love you, and yet, in consequence of special circumstances, I may not be able—we cannot have everything we wish for in this world." And she wandered into incoherent argument and specious reasoning, which she knew was false, and could not utter without hesitancy; the same commonplaces, repeated in different words, trying to give them the weight they lacked by emphasis and gesticulation.
But Raimundo was not listening. In a few minutes he rose, dried away his tears, and left the room without a word. Clementina watched him in surprise.
"I will wait for you," she called after him into the passage.
Twenty minutes later he returned, carrying a parcel.
"Here are your letters," he said with apparent calm, but his voice was thick and his face deadly pale.
Clementina glanced at him keenly, not without some uneasiness. But she controlled herself, and said simply:
"Thank you very much, Mundo. Now, we will burn them, if you please, in the kitchen."
He made no reply. They went together to the cold, unfurnished kitchen, which no one ever used, and Clementina, with her own hand, laid the packet on the hearth. But suddenly, just as she was about to strike the match which Raimundo had given her, she paused. Then she said, with a smile: