"Three weeks ago, after paying my father a fortune in bank notes," continued the girl, "the English book-buyer, Senor Havelock Moore-Ingraham, went away, and with him, borne by a caravan of ten mules, went the cream and richness of my father's library.
"Then came to our house this Jacques Ferou. He said he had been sent by the Paris house to whom my father had written. My father told him that he was too late to bid, that all the books of value had been sold.
"At that Jacques Ferou became very downcast; he said that his firm would be much put out when they learned he had allowed the English company to bag the hares while he played the laggard. And he begged very earnestly for permission to look through the books, which had not been purchased, in the hope that the English agent had overlooked a few volumes of value, volumes that he might buy in order to save his face."
Don Jaime gave him permission so to do. For almost a month he lived in the great dusky lonely house. When he was not in the library poring over the yellowed tomes, he wandered through the house, seeking sight of Felicidad. When she had her daily "hour of balcony", he would leave the casa and stand watching her from across the road, "playing the bear" in a very serious and devoted manner.
"I had never had a novio before," explained Felicidad, "and his eyes were so kind and sympathetic! It was very lonely in the great house with just my father and the old whining Pedro and the old childish Teresa. And he treated me with such consideration and reverence!
"We used to meet often in the long dusky corridors, he kissing my hands and telling me how beautiful I was, and I liking it, yet feeling fear of him and all a-tremble, besides, lest my father discover us. And at dinner time and all through the evenings, there he would be again, talking with my father about 'rogue novels' and the chroniclers of the conquistadores, and ever looking at me with the burning eyes of love.
"Two days ago, my father spoke very harshly to me, threatening me with a beating—he beats me even yet, you know. Old Pedro had told him that I had a novio—that was why he was angered at me. But he did not as yet suspect that my lover was Jacques Ferou.
"Jacques was to leave our house for Paris in another week. I could not resign myself to the old loneliness in that empty gloomy house; and I would not suffer even one more time the indignity of a beating at my father's hands. So two days ago I consented to run off with Jacques Ferou and become his wife.
"At four o'clock this morning, when it was still dark, I left my bed, dressed, put a few things together, and went out on my balcony. Jacques was waiting for me. He threw up a rope and I tied it to the iron railing and let myself down into his arms.
"Down the road a high-powered automobile awaited us. In it we raced precipitantly away, for as you very well know, we had the outraged pride of my terrible father to fear. Before seven o'clock in the morning, we had fled almost as far as Jaen. Then something went wrong with the automobile and it would go no farther; whereupon, Jacques sent a labrador into Jaen, who soon came back escorting a diligence pulled by four horses. In the diligence we set off for Castro which is on the railroad to Madrid. It was two hours before noon when we reached Castro, and the train came at noon."