"No, brother--not that I have indeed much to tell thee, but not now--not to-day."
"Choose thine own time; only remember, no secrets. That were the one unbrotherly act I could never forgive."
"But I am not yet satisfied about your wound," said Carlos, with perhaps a little moral cowardice, turning the conversation. "Was the bone broken?"
"No, fortunately; only grazed. It would not have signified, but for the treatment of the blundering barber-surgeon. I was advised to show it to some man of skill; and already my cousins have recommended to me one who is both physician and surgeon, and very able, they say."
"Dr. Cristobal Losada?"
"The same. Your favourite, Don Gonsalvo, has just been prevailed upon to make trial of his skill."
"I am heartily glad of it," returned Carlos. "There is a change of mind on his part, equal to any wherewith he can reproach me; and a change for the better, I have little doubt."
Thus the conversation wandered on; touching many subjects, exhausting none; and never again drawing dangerously near those deep places which one of the brothers knew must be thoroughly explored, and that at no distant day. For Juan's sake, for the sake of One whom he loved even more than Juan, he dared not--nay, he would not--avoid the task. But he needed, or thought he needed, consideration and prayer, that he might speak the truth wisely, as well as bravely, to that beloved brother.
XVII.
Disclosures.