Quentin waited a moment while he formulated a plan; then he exchanged a few phrases of farewell with Rafaela and her husband, and went to his hotel. He had decided to take the train and go in search of Remedios. Why not attempt it? Perhaps she had thought about him since childhood. Perhaps that was why she rejected her suitors.
Yes, he must try it. He ordered his baggage packed, boarded the train, and in a few moments got off at San Juan de Luz.
“There’s no sure way of crossing to Burgos without getting into trouble,” they told him at the station.
“What can I do?”
“Take ship to Santander, and go from there to Madrid by rail.”
He did this, and the next day, without stopping, he took the train for Andalusia.
He descended at Montoro in the morning, hired a horse, asked the direction of the Maillo farm, and immediately left town.
It was a foggy October day. It began to sprinkle.
Eight years before Quentin had come to that country on his return from school, on a morning that was also drizzly and sad.
What a wealth of energy and life he had spent since then! True, he had conquered, and was on the road to being a somebody, but—what a difference between the triumph as he had looked forward to it, and the same triumph as he looked back upon it! It was best not to remember, nor to think—but just to hope.