Ricardo gave the girl a long, sad look. He had just learned once and for all that that woman could never be his; that he held only a very subordinate place in that idolatrous heart, so full of mysterious sentiments, grand and sublime, perhaps, but incomprehensible for him. A tear sprang into his eyes and rolled tremblingly down his cheeks.
"You are right, Maria.... I don't understand you.... My father was a man of honor, and he also could not have understood you.... My grandfather was a soldier who lost his life in the defence of his country, and he, too, would not have understood you any better.... But my father and my grandfather would have felt insulted, as I feel insulted, that any one should remind them that they ought to keep secrets confided to them."
Both maintained a protracted silence, gazing sadly through the panes upon the great plaza of Nieva, which began to be concealed under the gathering shades of night. The passers-by were going to their homes with slow and lazy gait. A few lights were already burning in the depths of the houses. The ragamuffins, who had been laboriously catching the soap-bubbles sent out to them by the boy in the opposite house, had disappeared, and he, tired of blowing through his pipe, finally flung it to the ground together with his bowl of soap-suds, and set himself making faces at Ricardo and Maria; but they, solemn and motionless, paid no attention, as on other occasions, and the child, surprised to find them so serious, likewise remained motionless, staring at them with his bright, beautiful, cherub eyes.
CHAPTER XIII.
IN WHICH ARE TOLD THE LABORS OF A CHRISTIAN VIRGIN.
THE general commander kept by the fickle Spanish republic in the province of * * * was a good deal of a barbarian,—be it said without intention of hitting him too hard, for every man has the right to be as much of a barbarian as he finds consistent with sound morals and good habits. The first thing that he did, as soon as it was breathed to him that the Carlists of Nieva were getting ready for a surprise (algarada, battering-ram, was what he called it), and intended nothing less than to get possession of the gun factory, was to summon the commandant Ramírez and say to him:—
"Within an hour you must start for Nieva with two companies, together with the inspector of police, and as soon as you get there, you arrest and bring to me lashed arm to arm—do you understand?—lashed arm to arm, all the individuals who are put down on this paper."
"'Tis well, my brigadier!"
"It will not need more than half a company to guard them. You, with the rest of the force, put yourselves under command of the colonel-director until I make other arrangements."
"'Tis well, my brigadier!"
As the commandant Ramírez, having made his salute, was going out of the office door, the brigadier called him back,--