‘I have come to give you a letter, señorita,’ he answered, handing her Larralde’s missive. She held out her hand, and never took her eyes from his face.
Concha walked to the window—the window whence the Alcalde of Ronda had seen Conyngham hand Julia Barenna another letter. The old priest stood looking down into the garden, where, amid the feathery foliage of the pepper trees and the bamboos, he could perceive the shadow of a black dress. Conyngham also turned away, and thus the two men who held this woman’s happiness in the hollow of their hands stood listening to the crisp rattle of the paper as she tore the envelope and unfolded her lover’s letter. A great happiness and a great sorrow are alike impossible of realisation. We only perceive their extent when their importance has begun to wane.
Julia Barenna read the letter through to the end, and it is possible (for women are blind in such matters) failed to perceive the selfishness in every line of it. Then, with the message of happiness in her hand, she returned to the chair she had just quitted, with a vague wonder in her mind, and the very human doubt that accompanies all possession, as to whether the price paid has not been too high.
Concha was the first to move. He turned and crossed the room towards Conyngham.
‘I see,’ he said, ‘Estella in the garden.’
And they passed out of the room together, leaving Julia Barenna alone with her thoughts. On the broad stone balcony Concha paused.
‘I will stay here,’ he said. He looked over the balustrade. Señora Barenna was still asleep.
‘Do not awake her,’ he whispered. ‘Let all sleeping things sleep.’
Conyngham passed down the stairs noiselessly, and through the doorway into the garden.
‘And at the end—the Gloria is chanted,’ said Concha, watching him go.