*i-:v ::nfMTr :: ':■ .-'■ r-"--- * m^ ss r^ Y CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. TOMASO'S FORTUNE ----- 7 II. SISTER --.----25 III. A SMALL WORLD ----- 38 IV. IN A CROOKED WAY ----- 67 V. THE TALE OF A SCORPION - - - 79 VI. ON THE ROCKS ------ 8g VII. " GOLOSSA-A-L " - - - - - - IO7 VIII. THE MULE ------ 115 IX. IN LOVE AND WAR 134 X. STRANDED - I44 XI. PUTTING THINGS RIGHT - - - - 165 XII. FOR JUANITA'S SAKE ----- 170 XIII. AT THE FRONT I77 XIV. THE END OF THE " MOOROO " - - - 184 XV. IN A CARAVAN I92 XVI. IN THE TRACK OF THE WANDERING JEW - 201 XVII. THROUGH THE GATE OF TEARS - - - 229 XVIII. A PARIAH 238 XIX. THE prodigal's RETURN - - » - 245 B TOMASO'S FORTUNE 'ou talk of poor men, Senora— then 5'ou talk of me. See, I have nothing but the wits that are under mv hat." And Felipe Fortis spread himself out on the trellis- bordered bench of the little venta that stands at the junction of the Valdemosa road and the new road from Miramar to Palma in the island of Majorca. Felipe was, of course, known to be a young man of present position and future prospects, or' he would not have said such a thing. It was supposed, indeed, by some, to be a great condescension that he should stop ; at the little venta of the " Break of Day " and take his .half of wine on market days. And, of course, there fwerc women who eagerly souglit the woman in it, and said that Felipe drank the widow Navarro's sour wine ; to the bright eyes of the widow's daughter. ; " No such lurk for her," said Rosa's cousins and [aunts, who were dotted all up the slopes of the valley on either side in their little stone cottages, right up from the river to tlie Val d'Erraha— that sunny valley of repose which lies far above the capital of Majorca, far above the hum of life and sound of the restless sea! Felipe, who was a good looking young fellow, threw *» 8 TOMASO'S FORTUNE his hat clo^vn on the bench beside him. He had fair hair and a white skin— both, he understood, much admired by the dark-eyed daughters of the Baleares. He shook his finger with a playful condescension at the widow Navarro, with whom he W£is always kind enough to exchange a few light pleasantries. And she, woman- like, suited her fire to the calibre of the foe, for she was an innkeeper. " That is all— the wits that are under my hat," he repeated. And Rosa, who was standing in the deep shadow of the doorway, muttered to herself : " Then you are indeed a poor man." Fehpe glanced towards her, and wondered whether the sun was shining satisfactorily through the trellis on his fair hair. Ro=e looked at him with inscrutable eyes— deep as velvet, grave and meditative. She was slight and girlish', with dull blue-black hair, and a face that might have been faithfully cut on a cameo. It was the colour of a sun-burnt peach, and usually wore that air of gentle pride which the Moors seem to have left behind them, in those lands through which they passed, to the people upon whom they have impressed an indelible mark. But when she smiled, which was not often, her hps tilted suddenly at the corners in a way to make an old man young and a young man mad. Tomaso of the Mill, who sat on the low wall across the road in the shadow of a great fig-tree, was watching with steady eyes. Tomaso was always watching Rosa. He had watched for years. She had grown up under that steady eye. And now, staring into the deep shadow of the cottage interior, he thought that he saw Rosa smile TOMASO'S FORTUNE g upon Felipe. And Felipe, of course, concluded that she was smiling at him. They all did that. And onl}' Rosa knew the words she had whispered respecting the gallant Felipe. Tomaso of the Mill was a poor man if you like, and usually considered a dull one to boot. He only had the mill half-way up the hill to the Val d'Erraha— a mill to which no grist came now that there was steam com- munication between Palma and Barcelona, and it paid better to ship the produce of the island to the main- land, buying in return the adulterated produce of the Barcelona mills. Tomaso 's father had been a pros- perous man almost to the day of his death, but times had moved on, leaving Tomaso and his mill behind. And there is no man who watches the times mo\'e past him with a prouder silence than a Spaniard. The mill hardly brought in ten pesetas a month now, and that was from friends— poor men like himself who were yet gentlemen, and found some carefully worded reason why they preferred home-milled flour. Tomaso, moreover, was deadly simple : there is nothing more fatal than simplicity in these days. It never occurred to him to sell his mill, or let it fall in ruins and go else- where for work. His world had always been bounded on the south by the Val d'Erraha, on the north by the Valdemosa Road, on the west by the sea, and on the east by Rosa. He had never suffered from absolute hunger, and nothing but absolute hunger will make a Spaniard leave his home. So Tomaso of the Mill remained at the mill, and, like his forefathers, only repaired the sluices and conduit when the water suj^ply was no longer heavy enough to drive the creaking wheel. 10 TOMASO'S FORTUNE Since the death of his motlicr he had lived alone, cooking his own food, washing his own clothes, and no man in the valley wore a whiter sliirt. As to the food, perhaps there was not too much of it, or it may have been badly cooked ; for Tomaso had a lean and hungry look, and his tanned check had diagonal lines drawn from the cheek-bone to the corner of the clean-shaven mouth. The lips were firm, the chin was long. It was a solemn face that looked out from beneath the shadow of the great fig-tree. And— there- was no mistaking it — it was the face of that which the world calls a gentleman. Felipe turned towards him in his good-natured grand way, and invited him by a jerk of the head to come and partake of his half -bottle of Majorcan wine. There was a great gulf between these two men, for Tomaso wore no jacket and Felipe was never seen without one. Tomaso therefore accepted the invitation with a grave courtesy. Felipe knew his manners also. He poured a few drops into his own glass, for fear the cork should have left a grain of dust, and then filled his guest's little thick tumbler to the brim. They touched glasses gravely and drank, Felipe making a swinging gesture towards Rosa in the dark doorway before raising the glass to his lips. " And affairs at the mill ? " inquired Felipe, with a movement of the hand demanding pardon if the subject should be painful. " The wheel is still," replied Tomaso, with that grand air of indifference with v/hich Spain must eventually go to the wall. He slowly unrolled and re-rolled a cheap cigarette, and sat down on the bench opposite to Felipe. TOMASO'S FORTUNE li Felipe looked at him with that bright and good- natured smile which was known to be so deadly. He spread out his arms in a gesture of lofty indifference. " What will you ? " he asked, with a laugh. " It will come — your fortune." And Tomaso smi\cd gravely. He was quite con- vinced also, in his simple way, that his fortune would come ; for it had been predicted by a gipsy from Granada at the Trinity Fair on the little crowded market-place at Palma. The prediction had caught the popular fancy. Tomaso's poverty, it must be remembered, was a proverb all over the island. " As poor as Tomaso of the Mill," the people said ; it being understood that a church mouse failed to suggest such destitution. More- over, the gipsy foretold that Tomaso should make his own fortune with his own two hands, which added to the joke, for no one in Majorca is guilty of such manual energy as will lead to more than a sufficiency. " Now, I say," continued Felipe, turning to the widow with that unconscious way of discussing some one who happens to be present which is only under- stood in Soutliern worlds. " Now, I say that when it comes, it will have something to do with horses. See how he sits in tlie saddle I " And Felipe sketched perfection with a little gesture of his brown hand, which was generous of Felipe ; for Tomaso was (by one of those strange chances which lead the Spaniards to say that Cod gives nuts to those who have no teeth) a l^orn horseman, and sat in the saddle like a god— one straight line from heel to shoulder. Tomaso had risen from the bench and walked slowly across the road to his for^ner seat on the low wall. He was a shy and rather modest man, and felt, perhaps, 12 TOMASO'S FORTUNE that there was a suggestion of condescension in Felipe's attitude. If Felipe had come here to pay his addresses to Rosa, he, Tomaso, was not the man to put difficulties in the way. For he was one of those rare men who, in loving, place themselves in the background. He loved Rosa, in a word, better than he loved himself. And in the solitude of his life at the mill he had worked out a grim problem in his own mind. He had weighed himself carefully 5n the balance, nothing extenuating. He had taken as precise a measure of Felipe Fortis with his present position and his future prospects. And, of course, the only solution was that Rosa would do well to marry Felipe. So Tomaso withdrew to the outer side of the road and the shade of the lig-tree, v/hile Felipe talked gaily with Rosa's mother, and Rosa looked on from the doorway with deep, dark eyes that said nothing at all. For Felipe was wooing the daughter through the mother, as men have often done before him ; and the widow smiled on Felipe's suit. The whole business, it appeared, was to be conducted in a sane and gentlemanly way, over a half of the widow's wine, with clinking glasses and a grave politeness. And, of course, Felipe had it all his own way. The question of rivalry did not so much as suggest itself to him, so he could the more easily be kind to the quiet man with the steady eyes who withdrew with such tact when he had finished his wine. Of course, there was Tomaso's fortune to take into consideration. No one seemed to think of doubting that the prediction must eventually come true, but it was hardly hkely to be verified in time to convert Tomaso into a serious rival of Felipe Fortis. There were assuredly no fortunes to be made out of the half- TOMASO'S FORTUNE 13 ruined mill. The trade had left that for ever. There was no money in the whole valley, and Tomaso did not seem disposed to go and seek it elsewhere. He passed his time between the mill and the low wall opposite the venta of the " Break of Day," of which the stones beneath the fig-tree were polished with his constant use of them. He usually came down from the mill, which is a mile above the venta, as any one may prove who seeks the Valley of Repose to-day, by the new road recently cut on the hillside by a spasmodically active Town Council — the road from Miramar to Palma. It had been at one time supposed that Tomaso's fortune would come to him through this new road, for the construction of which a portion of the land attached to the mill must be purchased. But it was a very smaU portion, and the purchase-money a ridiculous little sum, which was immediately swallowed up in repairs to the creaking wheel. The road-makers, however, turned aside the stream below the mill, and conducted it to a chasm in the rock, where it fell a great height to a tunnel beneath the road. And half the valley said they could not sleep for the sound of it, and the other half said they liked it. And Rosa, whose bedroom window wiis nearer to it than any other m the valley, said nothing at all. Sitting beneath the fig-tree, Tomaso looked up suddenly towards the mill. He was so much accus- tomed to the roar of his own mill-stream that his ears never heeded it, and heard through it softer and more distant sounds. He heard something now — the regular beat of trotting horses on the road far above his home. He looked up towards the heights, though, of course, Uv could see notliing through the pines, which are 14 TOMASO'S FORTUNE thickly planted here and almost as large as the pines of Vizzavona, in the island of Corsica. He listened to the sound with that quiet interest which comes to those who live in constant sunshine, and is in itself nearly akin to indifference. " What is it ? " asked the widow, noting his attitude. " It is a carriage on the new road — some traveller from Miramar." Travellers from Miramar were few and far between. None had as yet made use of the new road. This was, therefore, a matter of considerable interest to the four persons idling away the afternoon at the venta of the " Break of Day." " The horses will as likely as not take fright at the new waterfall made by these mules of road-makers," said Tomaso, rising slowly and throwing away the end of his cigarette. He took his stand in the middle of the road, looking uphill with a gleam of interest in his eyes. He knew horses so well that his opinion arrested the attention of his hearers. Tomaso had always said that the diver- sion of his mill-stream would be dangerous to the traffic on the new road. But it was nobody's business to consult Tomaso. He stood in the middle of the road, contemplatively biting his lower lip — a lean, lithe man, who had lived a clean and simple life — and never dreamt that this might be his fortune trotting down the new Miramar road towards him. " Ah ! " he exclaimed, curtly. The steady pace was suddenly broken, and at the same moment the hollow roar of the wheels told that the carriage was passing over the little tunnel through TOMASO'S FORTUNE 15 which the stream escaped to the valley below. Then came the clatter of frightened horses and the broken cry of one behind them. Felipe leapt to his feet and stood irresolute. The widow gave a little cry of fear, and Rosa came out into the sunlight. There the three stood, rigid, watching Tomaso contemplatively biting his lip in the middle of the sun-lit road. In a moment the suspense was over — the worst was realized. A carriage swung round the corner a quarter of a mile higher up the road, with two horses stretched at a frantic gallop, and the driver had no reins in his hand ; for his reins had broken, and the loose ends fluttered on either side. He was stooping forward, with his right hand at the screw-brake between his legs, and in his left hand he swung his heavy whip. He was a brave man, at all events, for he kept his nerve and tried to guide the horses with his whip. There was just a bare chance that he might reach the venta, but below it — not a hundred yards below it — the road turned sharply to the right, and everything failing to take that sharp turn would leap into space and the rocky bed of the river five hundred feet below. The man gave a shout as he came round the corner, and to his credit it was always remembered that his gesture waved Tomaso aside. But Tomaso stood in the middle of the road, and His steady eyes suddenly blazed with a fierce excitement. His lips were apart. He was breathless, and Rosa found herself with her two hands at her throat, watching him. The carriage seemed to bear right down upon him, but he must have stepped aside, for it passed on and left the road clear. Tomaso was somewhere in the dust, in the confusion of tossing heads and ilying reins. Then i6 TOMASO'S FORTUNE his white shirt appeared against the black of the horses' manes. " Name of God ! " cried Felipe ; " he is on top ! " And Felipe Fortis forgot his fine clothes and superior manners. He was out on the road in an instant, running as he never ran before, and shouting a hundred Cata- lonian oaths which cannot be transcribed here even in Catalonian. It was difficult to see what happened during these moments, which were just those instants of time in which one man does well and another badly. But Rosa and her mother saw at length that Tomaso was apparently half standing on the pole between the two horses. He was swinging and jerking from side to side, but all the while he was gathering the scattered reins in his hands. Then suddenly he threw himself back, and the horses' heads went up as if they were being strangled. They jerked and tugged in vain. Tomaso's arms were like steel. Already the pace was slackening— the gallop was broken. And a minute later the carriage was at a standstill in the ditch. Already the driver was on the ground explaining excitedly to Tomaso how it had happened, and Tomaso was smiling gravely as he wiped some blood from his haijd. It was Felipe who, arriving at this moment, thought of opening the carriage-door. There was a pause while Felipe looked into the carriage and Rosa and her mother ran towards him. Rosa helped Felipe to assist an old man to alight. He was a very fat man. with grey and flaccid cheeks, with shiny black hair and a good deal of gold chain and ring about him. He seemed only half-conscious of the assistance proffered to him, and walked slowly across the road to the shade TOMASO'S FORTUNE 17 of the trees. Here he sat down on the low wall, with his elbows on his knees, his two hands to his head, and looked thoughtfully at the ground between his feet. It was precisely the attitude of one who has had a purler at football. And the others looked on in the waiting silence which usually characterizes such moments. " The gentleman is not hurt ? " suggested Felipe, who was always affable and ready with his tongue. But the gentleman was not prepared to confirm this optimistic view of the case. He simply sat staring at the ground between his feet. At length he lifted his head and looked Felipe slowly up and down. " Who stopped the horses ? " he asked. " A man in a white shirt." " It was Tomaso of the Mill," answered the widow, who would have spoken sooner if she had had her breath. " He washes his own," she added, anxious to say a good word for a neighbour. Tomaso should, of course, have come forward and bowed. But Toniaso's manners were not of a showy description. He was helping the driver to repair the reins, and paused at this moment to remove the perspiration from his forehead with two fingers, which he subsequently wiped on the scam of his trousers. " He ! " cried the fat man sitting on the wall. One could see that he was a business man ; for he had the curt manner of the counting house. " H<5, Tomaso ! " added the widow Navarro, in a shrill voice. And Tomaso came slowly forward. " Your name ? " said the man of business. "Tomaso." " Tomaso what ? " i8 tOMASO'S FORTUNE " Tomaso of the Mill." And his face fell a little when the fat man produced a pocket-book and wrote the name down with a shaking hand. The action rather savoured of the police and the law, and Tomaso did not like it. The stout man leant forward with his chin in the palm of his hand and reflected for some moments. He was singularly reflective, and seemed to be making a mental calculation. "See here," he said at length, looking at Tomaso with quick business-hke eyes. He was beginning to recover his colour now. " See here, I am not going to give you money — between gentlemen, eh ! such things are not done. You have saved my life. Good ! You are a brave man, and you risked your neck for a perfect stranger ! I happen to be a rich man, and my hfe is of some value. I came from Barcelona to Majorca on busi- ness — business with a good profit. If I had gone over there " — he paused, and jerked his thumb towards the blue and hazy space that lay below them — " the tran- saction would have fallen through. You have enabled me, by your prompt action, to return to Palma this evening and sign the papers connected with this affair. Good ! You are therefore entitled to a commission on the profit that I shall make. I have reckoned t out. It amounts to ten thousand pesetas — a modest fortune, eh ? " Tomaso nodded his head. He had always known that it would come. The widow Navarro threw up her eyes, and in a whisper called the attention of her own special black-letter saint to this business. Rosa was glancing surreptitiously at Felipe, who, to do him justice, was smiling on the old man with much appreciation. " You see what I am," continued the man of business, TOMASO'S FORTUNE 19 tapping his exuberant waistcoat ; " I am fat and I am sixty-seven. When I return to Palma, I shall notify to a lawyer that I leave to you, ' Tomaso of the Mill,' ten thousand pesetas, to be paid as soon after my death as possible. At Barcelona I shall put the matter into legal form with my own notary there." He rose from his seat on the wall and held out his thick white hand, which Tomaso took, and they shook hands gravely. " As between gentlemen, eh ? " said he ; " as between gentlemen." Then he walked slowly to the other side of the road, where the driver was engaged in drawing his carriage out of the ditch. " I will enter your malediction of a carriage," he said, " but you must lead the horses to the bottom of the hill." The carriage went slowly on its way, while the others, after watching it turn the corner, returned to the venta. In the twinkling of an eye Tomaso's fortune had come. And he had won it with his own hands, precisely as the gipsy from Granada had predicted. The tale, moreover, is true, and any one can verify it who will take the trouble to go to Palma de Mallorca, where half a dozen indepen- dent witnesses heard the prediction made at a stall in the crowded and narrow market - place nearly six months before the new Miramar road was completed. As it was getting dusk, Felipe Fortis mounted his horse and rode on to his home in the valley far down the Valde- mosa road. And Tomaso, with his handkerchief bound round his hand, walked thouglitfully up to his solitary homo. The great problem which he had thought out so carefully and brought to so grim and certain a conclusion 20 TOMASO'S FORTUNE had suddenly been reopened. And Rosa had noticed with the quickness of her sex that Tomaso had carefully avoided looking at her from the moment that his good fortune had been made known. His manner, as he bade mother and daughter a grull good-night was rather that of a malefactor than one who had just done a meritorious action, and Rosa watched him go with an odd little wise smile tilting the corners of her lips. " Good-night," she said. " You — and your fortune." And Tomaso turned the words over and over in his mind a hundred times, and could make nothing of them. Rosa was early astir the next morning, and happened to be at the open door when Tomaso came down the road. He was wearing his best hat — a flat-brimmed black felt —which, no doubt, the girl noticed, for it is by the piecing together of such trifles that women hold their own in this world. There was otherwise no change in Tomaso's habiliments, which consisted, as usual, of dark trousers, a white shirt, and a dark-blue faja or waistcloth. " Where are you going ? " cried Rosa, stepping out into the sunlight with a haste called forth, perhaps, by the suspicion that Tomaso would fain have passed by unnoticed. He stopped, his bronzed face a deeper red, his steady eyes wavering for once. But he did not come towards the venta, which stands on the higher side of the road. " I am going down to Palma — to make sure." " Of your fortune ? " inquired Rosa, looking at the cup she was drying with the air of superior knowledge which so completely puzzled the simple Tomaso. " Yes," he answered, slowly turning on his heel as if to continue his journey. TOMASO'S FORTUNE 21 * And then ? " asked Rosa. He looked up inquiringly. " When you have made sure of your precious fortune ?" she explained. She had raised her hand to her hair, and was standing in a very pretty, indifferent attitude. Tomaso held his lower hp between his teeth as he looked at her. " I don't know what I shall do with it ? " he answered, and, turning, he walked hurriedly down the sun-lit road. " Come in on your way back and tell us about it," she called out after him, and then stood watching him until he turned the corner where he had picked up his fortune on the road the day before. It was characteristic of the man that he never turned to look at her, and the girl gave a Httle nod of the head as he disappeared. She had apparently expected him not to look back, and yet wanted him to do it, and at the same time would rather he did not do it. Felipe Fortis would have turned half a dozen times, with a salutation and a wave of the hat. But the sun went down behind the tableland of the Val d'Erraha and Tomaso did not return. Then the moon rose, large and yellow, beyond the Valdcmosa Heights, and the widow Navarro, her day's work done, walked slowly up the road to visit her sister, the road-keeper's wife. Rosa sat on the bench beneath the trellis, and thought those long thoughts that belong to youth. She heard Tomaso' s step long before he came in sight, for the valley is thinly populated and as still as Sahara. He was walking slowly, and dragged his feet as if fatigued. The moon was now well up, and the girl could distinguish Tomaso's gleaming white shirt as he turned the corner. As he approached he kept on the left-hand side of the 22 TOMASO'S FORTUNE road. It was evident that he intended to call at the venta. " He — Tomaso ! " cried Rosa, when he was almost at the steps. " He — Rosa ! " he answered. " I am all alone," said Rosa. " Mother has gone to see Aunt Luisa. Have you your fortune in your pocket ? " He came up the steps and leant against the trellis, looking down at her. She could not see his face, but a woman does not always need to do that. " What is it — Tomaso ? " she asked gravely. " That poor man," he explained simply — for the Spaniards hold human life but cheaply — " was found dead in his carriage when they reached Palma. The doctors say it was the shock — and he so fat. At all events he is dead." Rosa crossed herself mechanically, and devoutly thought first of all of the merchant's future state. " His last action was a good one," she said. " There is that to remember." " Yes," said Tomaso, in a queer voice. And at the sound Rosa looked up at him sharply ; but she could see nothing, for his face was in the shadow. " And as for you," she said tentatively, " you will get your fortune all the sooner." " I shall never get it at all," answered Tomaso, with a curt laugh. " 1 went down to Palma this morning with my head full of plans — in the sunshine, I came back with an empty brain — in the dark." He stood motionless, looking down at her. They are slov/ of tongue in Majorca, and Rosa reflected for quite a minute before she spoke — which is saying a good dea> for a woman. TOMASO'S FORTUNE 23 " Tell me," she said at length, gently, " why is it that you will not get your fortune ? " " I went to the notary and told him what had hap- pened, whi^t the merchant had said, and who had heard him — and the notary laughed. ' Where is your paper ? ' he asked ; and, of course, I had no paper. I went to another notary, and at last I saw the Alcalde. ' You should have asked for a paper properly signed,' he said. But no gentleman could have asked for that." " No," rephed Rosa, rather doubtfully. " I found the driver of the carriage," continued Tomaso, " and took him to the Alcalde, but that was no bettefr. The Alcalde and the notaries laughed at us. Such a story, they said, would make any lawyer laugh." " But there is Felipe Fortis, who heard it too." " Yes," answered Tomaso, in a hollow voice, " there is Felipe Fortis. He was in Palma, and I found him at the ca.i6. But he said he had not time to come to the Alcalde with me then, and he was sure that if he did it would be useless." " Ah ! " said Rosa. She got up and walked to the edge of the terrace, look- ing down into the moonlit valley in silence for some minutes. Then she came slowly back, and stood before him looking up into his face. He was head and shoulders above her. " So your fortune is gone ? " she said. And the moon- light shining on hor face betrayed the presence of that fleeting wise smile which Tomaso had noticed more than once with wonder. " Yes — it is gone. And there is an end of it." " Of what ? •' asked Rosa. 24 TOMASO'S FORTUNE " Oh ! — of everything," replied Tomaso, with a grim stoicism, Rosa stood looking at him for a moment. Then she took two deliberate steps forward and leant against him just as he was leaning against the trellis, as if he had been a tree or something solid and reliable of that sort. She laid her cheek, of a deeper colour than a sunburnt peach, against his white shirt. In a sort of parenthesis of thought she took a sudden, half-maternal interest in the middle button of his shirt, tested it, and found it morC iirmly fixed than she had supposed. Her dusky hair just brushed his chin. " Then you are nothing but a stupid," she said. II SISTER It does not matter where it was. I do not want other people— that is to say, those who were around us— to recognize sister or myself. It is not likely that she will see this, and I am not sure that she knows my name. Of course, some one may draw her attention to this paper, and she may remember that the name affixed to it is that which I signed at the foot of a document we made out together — namely, a return of deaths. At the foot of this paper our names stood one beneath the other — stand there still, perhaps, in some forgotten bundle of papers at the War Office. I only hope that she will not see this, for she might consider it a breach of professional etiquette ; and I attach great importance to the opinion of this woman, whom I have only seen once in my whole life. Moreover, on that occasion she was subordinate to me — more or less in the position of a servant. Suffice it to say, therefore, that it was war-time, and our trade was what the commercial papers call brisk. A war better remembered of the young than of the old, because it was, comparatively speaking, recent. The old fellows seem to remember tlie old fights belter — •s 26 SISTER those fights that were fought when their blood was still young and the vessels thereof unclogged. It was, by the way, my first campaign, but I was not new to the business of blood ; for I am no soldier — only a doctor. My only uniform — my full-parade dress — is a red cross on the arm of an old blue serge jacket — such jacket being much stained with certain dull patches which are better not investigated. All who have taken part in war — doing the damage or repairing it — know that things are not done in quite the same way when ball-cartridge is served out instead of blank. The correspondents are very fond of reporting that the behaviour of the men suggested a parade — which simile, it is to be presumed, was borne in upon their fantastic brains by its utter inapplicability. The parade may be suggested before the real work begins — when it is a question of marching away from the landing stage ; but after the work — our work — has begun, there is remarkably Httle resemblance to a review. We are served with many official papers which we never fill in, because, on the spur of the moment, it is apt to suggest itself that men's hves are more important. We misapply a vast majority of our surgical supplies, because the most important item is usually left behind at headquarters or at the seaport depot. In fact, we do many things that we should leave undone, and omit to do more which we are expected (officially) to do. For some reason — presumably the absence of better men — I was sent up to the front before we had been three days at work. Our hospital by the river was not full when I received orders to follow the flying column with two assistants and the appliances of a field-hospital. Out of this httle nucleus sprang the largest depot for SISTER 27 sick and wounded that was formed during the campaign. We were within easy reach of headquarters, and I was fortunately allowed a free hand. Thus our estabUsh- ment in the? desert grew daily more important, and finally superseded the hospital at headquarters. We had a busy time, for the main column had now closed up with the first expeditionary force, and our troops were in touch with the enemy not forty miles away from me. In the course of time — when the authorities learnt to cease despising the foe, which is a httle faihng in British military high places — it was deemed expedient to fortify us, and then, in addition to two medical assistants, I was allowed three Government nurses. This last piece of news was not hailed with so much enthusiasm as might have been expected. I am not in favour of bringing women anywhere near the front. They are, for their own sakes and for the peace of mind of others, much better left behind. If they are beyond a certain age they break down and have to be sent back at consider- able trouble — that is to say, an escort and an ambulance cart, of which latter there are never enough. If they are below the climacteric — ever so little below it — they cause mischief of another description, and the wounded are neglected ; for there is no passion of the human heart so cruel and selfish as love. " I am sorry to hear it," I said to light-hearted little Sammy Fitz-Warrcner of the Naval Brigade, who brought me the news. " Sorry to hear it ? Gad ! I shouldn't be. The place has got a dilfcrcnt look about it when there are women- folk around. They are so jolly clever in their ways- worth ten of your red-cross ruffians." 28 SISTER " That is as may be," I answered, breaking open the case of whisky which Sammy had brought up on the carriage of his machine-gun for my private consumption. He was taking this machine-gun up to the front, and mighty proud he was of it. " A clever gun," he called it ; " an almighty clever gun." He had ridden alongside of it— sittmg on the top of his horse as sailors do— through seventy miles of desert without a halt ; watching over it and tending it as he might have watched and tended his mother, or perhaps some other woman. " Gad ! doctor," he exclaimed, kicking out his sturdy legs, and contemplating with some satisfaction the yellow hide top-boots which he had bought at the Army and Navy Stores. (I know the boots well, and— avoid them.) " Gad ! doctor, you should see that gun on the war-path. Travels as light as a tricycle. And when she begins to talk— my stars : Click— click— click— cHck! For all the world Hke a steam-launch's engine —mowing 'em down all the time. No work for you there. It will be no use you and your sateUites progging about with skewers for the bullet. Look at the other side, my boy, and you'll find the beauty has just walked through them." " Soda or plain ? " I asked, in parenthesis. " Soda. I don't like the flavour of dead camel. A big drink, please. I feel as if I were lined with sand- paper." He slept that night in the httle shanty, built of mud and roofed chiefly with old palm-mats, which was grace- fully called the head surgeon's quarters. That is to say, he partook of such hospilaUty as I had to offer him. SISTER 29 Sammy and I had met before he had touched a rope or I a scalpel. We hailed from the same part of the country — down Devonshire way ; and, to a limited extent, we knew each other's people— which httle phrase has a vast meaning in places where men do congregate. We turned in pretty early — I on a hospital mattress, he in my bed ; but Sam would not go to sleep. He would he with his arms above his head (which is not an attitude of sleep) and talk about that everlasting gim. I dozed off to the murmur of his voice expatiating on the extreme cunning of the ejector, and awoke to hear detail™, of the riHing. We did not talk of home, as do men in books when lying by a camp fire. Perhaps it was owing to the absence of that picturesque adjunct to a soldier's life. We talked chiefly of the clever gun ; and once, just before he fell asleep, Sammy returned to the question of the nurses. " Yes," he said, " the head saw-bones down there told me to tell you that he had got permission to send you three nurses. Treat 'cm kindly. Jack, for my sake. Bless their hearts ! They mean well." Then he fell asleep, and left me thinking of his words, and of the spirit which had prompted them. I knew really nothing of this man's life, but he seemed singularly happy, with that happiness which only comes when daily existence has a background to it. He spoke habitually of women as if he loved them all for the sake of one ; and this not being precisely my own position, I was glad when he fell asleep. The fort was astir next morning at four. The bugler 30 SISTER kindly blew a blast into our glassless window which left no doubt about it. " That means all hands on deck, I take it," said Sam, who was one of the few men capable of good humour before tififin time. By six o'clock he was ready to go. It was easy to see what sort of officer this cheery sailor was by the way his men worked. While they were getting the machine-gun limbered up, Sam came back to my quarters, and took a hasty breakfast. " Feel a bit down this morning," he said, with a gay smile. " Cheap— very cheap. I hope I am not going to funk it. It is all very well ior some of you long- faced fellows, who don't seem to have much to live for, to fight for the love of fighting. I don't want to fight any man ; I am too fond of 'em all for that." I went out after breakfast, and I gave him a leg up on to his very sorry horse, which he sat like a tailor or a sailor. He held the reins like tiller-lines, and indulged in a pleased smile at the effect of the yellow boots. " No great hand at this sort of thing," he said, with a nod of farewell. " When the beast does anything out of the common, or begins to make heavy weather of it, / am not." He ranged up alongside his beloved gun, and gave the word of command with more dignity than he knew what to do with. All that day I was employed in arranging quarters for the nurses. To do this I was forced to turn some of our most precious stores out into the open, covering them with a tarpaulin, and in consequence felt all the more assured that my chief was making a great mistake, SISTER 31 At nine o'clock in the evening they arrived, one of the juniors having ridden out in the moonhght to meet them. He reported them completely exhausted ; in- formed me that he had recommended them to go straight to bed , and was altogether more enthusiastic about the matter than I personally or officially cared to see. He handed me a pencil note from my chief at head- quarters, explaining that he had not written me a despatch because he had nothing but a " J " pen, with which ■ instrument he could not make himself legible. It struck me that he was suffering from a plethora of assistance, and was anxious to reduce his staff. I sent my enthusiastic assistant to the nurses' quarters, with a message that they were not to report them- selves to me until they had bad a night's rest. Then I turned in. At midnight I was awakened by the orderly, and summoned to the tent of the officer in command. This youth's face was considerably whiter than his linen. He was consulting with his second in command, a boy of twenty-two or thereabouts. A man covered with sand and blood was sitting in a hammock-chair, rubbing his eyes, and drinking some- thing out of a tumbler. " News from the front ? " I inquired without ceremony, which hindrance we had long dispensed with. " Yes, and bad news." It certainly was not pleasant hearing. Some one mentioned the word " disaster," and we looked at each other with hard, anxious eyes. I thought of the women, and almost decided to send them back before day- light. In a few moments a fresh man was roused out of his 32 SISTER bed, and sent full gallop through the moonlight across the desert to headquarters, and the officer in command began to regain confidence. I think he extracted it from the despatch- bearer^ s tumbler. After all, he was not responsible for much. He was merely a connecting- link, a point of touch between two greater men. It was necessary to get my men to work at once, but I gave particular orders to leave the nurses un- disturbed. Disaster at the front meant hard work at the rear. We all knew that, and endeavoured to make ready for a sudden rush of wounded. The rush began before daylight. As they came in we saw to them, dressing their wounds and packing them as closely as possible. But the stream was continuous. They never stopped coming ; they never gave us a moment's rest. At six o'clock I gave orders to awaken the nurses and order them to prepare their quarters for the reception of the wounded. At half-past six an Army Hospital Corps man came to me in the ward. " Shockin' case, sir, just come in," he said. " Officer. Gun busted, sir." " Take him to my quarters," I said, wiping my instruments on my sleeve. In a few minutes I followed, and on entering my httle room the first thing I saw was a pair of yellow boots. There was no doubt about the boots and the white duck trousers, and although I could not see the face, I knew that this was Sammy Fitz-Warrener come back again. A woman— one of the nurses for whom he had pleaded —was bending over the bed with a sponge and a basin SISTER 33 of tepid water. As I entered she turned upon me a pair of calmly horror-stricken eyes, "Oh!" she whispered meaningly, stepping back to let me approach. I had no time to notice then that she was one of those largely built women, with perfect skin and fair hair, who make one think of what England must have been before Gallic blood got to be so widely disseminated in the race. " Please pull down that mat from the window," I said, indicating a temporary blind which I had put up. She did so promptly, and returned to the bedside, falling into position as it were, awaiting my orders. I bent over the bed, and I must confess that what I saw there gave me a thrill of horror which will come again at times so long as I live. I made a pi;;n to Sister to continue her task of sponging away the mud, of which one ingredient was sand, " Both eyes," she whispered, " are destroyed," " Not the top of the skull," I said ; " you must not touch that." For we both knew that our task was without hope. As I have said, I knew something of Fitz-Warrencr's people, and I could not help lingering there, where I could do no good, when I knew that 1 was wanted elsewhere. Suddenly his lips moved, and Sister, kneehng down on the floor, bent over him. I could not hear what he said, but I think she did. I saw her lips frame the whisper " Yes" in reply, and over her face there swept suddenly a look of great tenderness. After a little pause she rose and came to me. 34 SISTER " Who is he ?" she asked. " Fitz-Warrener of the Naval Brigade. Do you know him?" " No, I never heard of him. Of course— it is quite hopeless ? " " Quite." She returned to her position by the bedside, with one arm laid across his chest. Presently he began whispering again, and at intervals she answered him. It suddenly occurred to me that, in his unconsciousness, he was mistaking her for some one else, and that she, for some woman's reason, was deceiving him purposely. In a few moments I was sure of this. I tried not to look ; but I saw it all. I saw his poor blind hands wander over her throat and face, up to her hair. " What is this ? " he muttered quite distinctly, with that tone of self- absorption which characterizes the sayings of an unconscious man. " What is this silly cap?" His fingers wandered on over the snowy linen until they came to the strings. As an aspirant to the title of gentleman, I felt like running away— many doctors know this feeling ; as a doctor, I could only stay. His fingers fumbled with the strings. Still Sister bent over the bed. Perhaps she bent an inch or two nearer. One hand was beneath his neck, supporting the poor shattered head. He slowly drew off the cap. and his fingers crept lovingly over the soft fair hair. " Marny," he said, quite clearly, " you've done your SISTER 35 hair up, and you're nothing but a Httle girl, you know — nothing but a httle girl." I could not help watching his fingers, and yet I felt like a man committing sacrilege. " When I left j^ou," said the brainless voice, " you wore it down your back. You were a little girl — you are a httle girl now." And he slowly drew a hairpin out. One long lock fell curling to his shoulder. She never looked up. never noticed me, but knelt there hke a ministering angel — personating for a time a girl whom we had never seen. " My little girl," he added, with a low laugh, and drew out another hairpin. In a few moments all her hair was about her shoulders. I had never thought that she might be carrying such glory quietly hidden beneath the simple nurse's cap. " That is better," he said—" that is better." And he let all the hairpins fall on the coverlet. " Now you are my own Marny," he murmured. " Are you not ? " She hesitated one moment. " Yes, dear," she said softly. " I am your own Marny." With her disengaged hand she stroked his blanching check. There was a certain science about her touch, as if she had once known something of these matters. Lovingly and slowly the .smoke-grimed fingers passed over the wonderful hair, smoothing it. Then he grew more daring. He touched her eyes, her gentle cheeks, the quiet, strong lips. He slipped to her shoulder, and over the soft folds of her black dress. " Been gardening ? " he asked, coming to the bib of her nursing apron. It was marvellous how the brain, which was laid open 36 SISTER to the day, retained the consciousness of one subject so long. " Yes — dear," she whispered. " Your old apron is all wet ! " he said reproachfully, touching her breast where the blood — his own blood — was slowly drying. His hand passed on, and as it touched her, I saw her eyes soften into such a wonderful tenderness that I felt as if I were looking on a part of Sister's hfe which was sacred. I saw a little movement as if to draw back, then she resolutely held her position. But her eyes were dull with a new pain. I wonder — I have wondered ever since — what memories that poor senseless wreck of a man was arousing in the woman's heart by his wandering touch. " Marny," he said, " Marny. It was not too hard waiting for me ? " " No, dear." "It will be all right now, Marny. The bad part is all past." " Yes." " Marny, you remember — the night — I Jeft — Marny — I want — no — no, your lips." I knelt suddenly, and slipped my hand within his shirt, for I saw something in his face. As Sister's lips touched his I felt his heart give a great bound within his breast, and then it was still. When she lifted her face it was as pale as his. I must say that I felt like crying — a feeling which had not come to me for twenty years. I busied myself purposely with the dead man, and when I had finished my task I turned, and found Sister filling in the paper — her cap neatly tied, her gulden hair hidden. SISTER 37 t signed the certificate, placing my name beneath hers. For a moment we stood. Our eyes met, and — we said nothing. She moved towards the door, and I held it open while she passed out. Two hours later I received orders from the officer in command to send the nurses back to headquarters. Our men were falling back before the enemy. Ill A SMALL WORLD " Thine were the calming eyes That round my pinnace could have stilled the sea. And drawn thy voyager home, and bid him be Pure with their pureness, with their wisdom wise. Merged in their light, and greatly lost in thee." It was midday at the monastery of Montscrrat, and a monk, walking in the garden, turned and paused in his meditative promenade to listen to an unwonted noise. The silence of this sacred height is so intense that man cannot sleep at night for the hunger of a sound. There is no running water except the fountain in the patio, There are no birds to tell of spring and morning. There are no trees for the cool night winds to stir, nothing bu1 eternal rock and the ancient building so closely associatec with the Hfe of Ignatius de Loyola. The valley, a sheei three thousand feet below, is thinly enough populated though a great river and the hne of railway from Manresj to Barcelona run through it. Se clear is the atmospheri that at the great distance the contemplative denizen: of the monastery may count the number of the railwa; carriages, while no sound of the train or indeed of an; life in the valley, reaches their ears. What the monk heard was disturbing, and he hurrid 3> A SMALL WORLD 39 to the corner of the garden, from whence a view of the winding road may be obtained. Floating on the wind :ame the sound, as from another world, of shouting, ind thp hollow rumble of wheels. The holy man peered iown into the valley, and soon verified his fears. It ivas the diligencia, which had quitted the monastery a jhort hour ago, that flew down the hill to inevitable lestruction. Once before in the recollection of the ^'atcher the mules had run away, rushing down to their leath, and carrying with them across that frontier the ives of seven passengers, devout persons, who, having jcrformed the pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of klontscrrat, had doubtless received their reward. The nonk crossed himself, but, being human, forgot alike o pray and to call his brethren to witness the scene. t was like looking at a play from a very high gallery, 'he miniature diligencia on the toy road far below swayed rom the bank of the highway to the verge — the four nules stretched out at a gallop, as in a picture. The houts dimly heard at the monastery had the effect hey were intended to create, for the monk could see he carters and muleteers draw aside to let the living .valanche go past. There were but two men on the box-seat of the liligencia — the driver and a passenger seated by his ide. The monk recollected that this passenger had )assedtwo days at Montscrrat, inscribing himself in he visitors' book as Matthew S. Whittaker. " I am ready to take the reins when your arms are ramped," this passenger was saying at that precise noment, " but I do not know the road, and I caiuiut Irive so well as you." lie fini.-hed with a curt laugh, and, holding on with 40 A SMALL WORLD both hands, he turned and looked at his companion. He was not afraid, and death assuredly stared him in the face at that moment. " Thanks for that, at all events," returned the driver, handling his reins with a steady skill. Then he fell to cursing the mules. As he rounded each corner of the winding road, he gave a derisive shout of triumph ; as he safely passed a cart, he gave voice to a yell of defiance. He went to his death — if death awaited him — with a fine spirit, with a light in his eyes and the blood in his tanned cheeks. The man at his side could perhaps have saved him- self by a leap which might, with good fortune, have resulted in nothing more serious than a broken limb. As he had been invited by the driver to take this leap and had curtly declined, it is worth while to pause and give particulars of this passenger on the runaway dili- gencia. He was a slightly built man, dressed in the ordinary dark clothes and soft black felt hat of the middle class Spaniard. His face was brown and sun- dried, with deep lines drawn downwards from the nose to the Ups in such a manner that cynicism and a mildly protesting tolerance were contending for mastery in an otherwise studiously inexpressive countenance. " The Excellency does not blame me for this ? " the driver jerked out, as he hauled round a corner with a so^t of pride. " No, my friend," replied the American ; and he broke off suddenly to curve his two hands around his lips and give forth a warning shout in a clear tenor that rang down the valley hke a trumpet. A muleteer leading a heavily laden animal drew his beast into the ditch, and leapt into the middle of the A SMALL WORLD 41 road. He stepped nimbly aside and sprang at the leading mule, but was rolled into the ditch hke an old hat. " That is an old torero," shouted the driver. " Bravo, bravo ! " As they flew on, Whittaker turned in his seat and caught a glimpse of the man standing in the middle of the road, with arms spread out in an attitude of apology and deprecation. " Ah ! " cried the driver, " we shall not pass these, Now leap ! " " No," answered the other, and gave his warning shout. Below them on the spiral road two heavy carts were slowly mounting. These were the long country carts ased for the carriage of wine-casks, heavily laden with oarrels for the monastery. The drivers, looking up saw in a moment what to expect, and ran to the head of their long teams of eiglit mules, but all concerned knew in a flash of thought that they could not pull aside in time. " Leap, in the name of a saint ! " cried the driver, clenching his teeth. Wliittaker made no answer. But he cleared liis feet and sat forward, Ids keen face and narrow eyes alert to seize any chance of hfe. The maddened mules rushed on, seeking to free themselves from the swaying de- stroyer on their heels. The leaders swung round the corner, but refused to obey the reins when they caught sight of the cart in front. The brakes had long ceased to act { the worxlen blocks were charred as by fire. The two heavier mules at the pole made a terrified but inteUigcnt attempt to check the pace, and the weighty 42 A SMALL WORLD vehicle skidded sideways across the road, shuddering and rattUng as it went. It poised for a moment on the edge of the slope, while the mules threw themselves into their collars— their intclUgence seeming to rise at this moment to a human height. Then the great vehicle turned slowly over, and at the same moment Whittaker and the driver leapt into the tangle of heels and harness. One of the leaders swung right out in mid-air with flying legs, and mules and diligencia rolled over and ovei down the steep in a cloud of dust and stones. When Matthew S. Whittaker recovered conscious- ness, he found himself in a richly furnished bedroom He woke as if from sleep, with his senses fully alert, anc began at once to take an interest in a conversatior of which he had been conscious in the form of a fam' murmur for some time. '.' A broken arm, my child, and nothing more, so fa as I can tell at present," were the first comprehensibi words. Whittaker tried to move his left arm, and winced. " And the other man ? " inquired a woman's voice i: Spanish, but with an accent which the listener recognize at once.' This was an Englishwoman speaking Spanish " Ah ! the other man is dead. Poor Miguel I H was always civil and God-fearing. He has driven th dihgencia up to us for nearly twenty years." Whittaker turned his head, and winced again. Th speaker was a monk— fat and goodnatured— one of tl few now left in the great house of Montserrat. His inte locutor was a woman not more than thirty, with bro\\ hair that gleamed in the sunlight, and a fresh, though ful face. Her attitude was somewhat independent, h manner indicated a self-reUant spirit. This was A SMALL WORLD 43 woman who would probably make mistakes in life, but these would not be the errors of omission. She was a prototype of a sex and an age which err in advancing too quickly, and in holding that everything which is old- fashioned must necessarily be foolish. Whittaker lay quite still and watched these two, while the deep-drawn lines around his lips indicated a decided sense of amusement. He was in pain, but that was no new condition to a man whose spirit had ever been robuster than his body. He had, at all events, not been killed, and his last recollection had been the effort to face death. So he lay with a twisted smile on his lips listening to Brother Lucas, who, sad old monk that he was, took infinite pleasure in glorifying to the young lady his own action in causing the monastery cart to be brought out, and in driving down the slope at a break- icck pace to place his medical knowledge at the disposal Df such as might require it. He bowed in a portly way, md indicated with a very worldly politeness that he limself was, in fact, at the disposal of the Sefiorita. " I was not always a monk — I began life as a doctor," 16 explained. And his companion looked at him with speculative, :lever eyes, scenting afar off, with the quickness of her icind, the usual little romance — the everlasting woman. " Ah ! " she said slowly. And Whittaker in the alcove coughed with discretion. Both turned and hurrierl towards him. " He has recovered his senses," said the girl. The monk had, however, not laid aside all the things 3f this world. He remembered the little ceremonies ippcrtainingtotiioprofes^ion which he had once practised. He waived aside the girl, and stooped over the bed. 44 A SMALL WORLD " You understand what I say— you see me ? " he inquhed in a soothing voice. " Most assuredly," rephed Whittaker, coolly. " Most assuredly, my father. And I do not think there is ranch the matter with me." " Holy Saints, but you go too quickly," laughed the monk. " You will be wanting next to get up and walk." " I should not mind trying." " Ah, that is good 1 Then you will soon be well. Sefiorita, we shall have no trouble with this patient. This, Sefior, is the Sefiorita Cheyne, in whose house you find yourself, and to whom your thanks are due." Whittaker turned in bed to thank her ; but instead of speaking, he quietly fainted. He came to his senses again, and found that it was evening. The windows of his room were open, and he could see across the valley the brown hills of Catalonia, faintly tinged with pink. A nursing sister in her dark blue dress and white winged cap was seated at the open window, gazing reflectively across the valley. There was an odour of violets in the room. A fitful breeze stirred the lace curtains. Whittaker perceived his own travel- worn portmanteau lying half unpacked on a side table. It seemed that some one had opened it to seek the few necessaries of the moment. He noted with a feeling of helplessness that his simple travelUng accessories had been neatly arranged on the dressing-table. A clean handkerchief lay on the table at the bedside. The wounded man became conscious of a feeUng that he had lost some of the solitary Uberty which had hitherto been his. It seemed that he had been picked up on the road helpless and insensible by some one with the A SMALL WORLD 45 will and power to take entire charge of him. The fcehng was so new to this adventurer that he lay still and smiled. Presently the nun rose and came quickly towards him, diiiclosing within the halo of her snowy cap a gentle pink- and- white face wrinkled by the passage of un- eventful years. She nodded cheerfully on seeing that his eyes were open, and gave him some soup which was warming on a spirit lamp in readiness for his return to consciousness. " I will tell the Seiiorita," she said, and noiselessly quitted the room. A minute later Miss Cheyne came in with a pleasant frou-frou of silk, and Whittaker wondered for whom she had dressed so carefully. " I did not know," she said in English, with an ease of manner which is of this generation, " that I had succoured a countryman. You were hterally thrown at my gate. But the doctor, who has just left, confirms the opinion of Brother Lucas that you are not seriously hurt. A broken fore- arm and a severe shake, they say— to be cured by complete rest, which you will be able to enjoy here. For there is no one in the house but my aunt, Mrs. Dorchester, and myself." She stood at the bedside, looking down at him with her capable, managing air. Whittaker now knew the source of that sense of being " taken in and done for," of which he had become conscious the moment his senses returned to him. " They say," she went on, with a decisiveness which was probably an accentuation of lu-r usual attitude, inspired by the necessity of sparing the patient the exertion of an explanation or an apology—' they say 46 A SMALL WORLD however, that you are not naturally a very strong man, and that you have tried your constitution in the past, so that greater care is required than would otherwise be necessary in such a case." She looked at the brown face and sinewy neck, the hollow cheeks, the lean hands ("all wires," as she decided in her own prompt mind), and her clear eyes were alight with a speculation as to what the past had been in which this man had tried his constitution. " I have led a rough hfe," explained Whittaker ; and Miss Cheyne nodded her head in a manner indi- cative of the fact that she divined as much.^ " I thought you were a Spaniard," she said. " No ; I have hved in the Spanish colonies, however —the last few years— since the troubles began." Miss Cheyne nodded again without surprise. She had gone about the world, with those clear eyes of hers very wide open, and was probably aware that in those parts where, as Whittaker gracefully put it, " troubles " are, such men as this are usually to be found. For it is not the large men who make a stir in the world. These usually sit at home and love a life of ease. It is even said "that they take to novel- writing and other sedentary occupations. And in the forefront, where things are stirring and history is to be manufactured, are found the small and the frail, such as Matthew S. Whittaker, who, in addition to the battles of progress, have to contend personally against constitutional delicacy, nervous depression, and disease. Miss Cheyne kept silence for a few moments, and, during the pause, turned at the sound of a horse's feet on the gravel below the windows. She seemed to have been expecting aa arrival, and Whittaker noticed a A SMALL WORLD 47 sudden brightening of the eyes, an almost imperceptible movement of the shoulders, as if Miss Cheyne was drawing herself up. The American quickly reflected that the somewhat elaborate "toilette" was unusual, and connected it with the expected visitor. He was not surprised when, with a poHte assurance that he had only to ask for anything he might require, she turned and left him. Whittaker now remembered having been told by the voluble driver of the diligcncia the history of a certain English Senorita who, having inherited property from a forgotten uncle, had come to hve in her " possession " on the mountain side. He further recollected that the house had been pointed out to him — a long, low dwelHng of the dull red stone quarried in this part of Catalonia. Being of an observant habit, he remembered that the house was overgrown by a huge wisteria, and faced eastward. He turned his head painfully, and now saw that his windows were surrounded by mauve fronds oi wisteria. His room was, therefore, situated in the front of the house. There was, he recollected, a veran- dah below his windows, and he wondered whether Miss Cheyne received her visitors there in the cool of the afternoon. He listened half-sleepily, and heard the horse depart, led away by a servant. There followed the murmur of a conversation, between two persons only, below his window. So far as he could gather from the tones, for the words were inaudible, they were spoken in English. And thus he fell asleep. During the next few days, Whittaker made good progress, and fully enjoyed the quiet prescribed to him by the doctors. The one event of the day was Miss Chcync's visit, to which he ioon learnt to look forward. 48 A SMALL WORLD He had, during an adventurous life, had httle to do with women, and Miss Cheyne soon convinced him of the fact that many quahties— such as independence, courage, and energy— were not, as he had hitherto imagined, the monopoly of men alone. But the interest thus aroused did not seem to be mutual. Miss Cheyne was kind and quick to divine his wants or thoughts ; but her visits did not grow longer day by day as, day by day, Whittaker wished they would. Daily, more- over, the visitor arrived on horseback, and the mur- mured conversation in the verandah duly followed. A few weeks earlier Whittaker had made the voyage across to the island of Majorca, to visit an old com- panion-in-arms there, and offer him a magnificent m- ducement to return to active service. That comrade had smilingly answered that he held cards of another suite. Miss Cheyne likewise appeared to hold another suite, and the American felt vaguely that the dealer of hfe's cards seemed somehow to have passed him by. He daily urged the young doctor to allow him to leave his bed, "if only," he pleaded with his twisted smile, " to sit in a chair by the window." At last he gained his point, and sat, watch in hand, awaiting the arrival of Miss Cheyne's daily visitor. To the end of his_ hfe Matthew Whittaker believed that some instinct guided him at this time.C He had only spoken with his nurse and the doctor, and had refrained from making mquines of either respecting the lady whose hospitality he en- joyed He had now carefully recalled all that the dead driver of the diligencia had told him, and had dismissed half of it as mere gossip. Beyond the fact that Miss Cheyne's aunt, Mrs. Dorchester, acted as her compamon, he knew nothing. But he had surmised, from remarks A SMALL WORLD 49 dropped by the young lady herself, that her mother had been a Spaniard ; hence the uncle from whom she had inherited this estate. He also had reason to believe that Miss Cheyne's mother had been brought up in the older faith. He reflected on these matters, and smiled half cynically at the magnitude of his own interest in Miss Cheyne as he sat at the open window. He had not long to wait be- fore the clatter of a horse's feet on the hard road became audible. The house stood back from the high-road in the midst of terraced olive groves, and was entirely sur- rounded by a grove of cypress and ilex trees. The visitor, whose advent was doubtless awaited with as keen ari impatience by another within the red stone house, now leisurely approached beneath the avenue of evergreen oak. Whittaker got painfully upon his feet, and stood, half concealed by the curtain. He was conscious of a singular lack of surprise when he recognized the face of the horseman as one that he had already seen, though, when he came in a flash of thought to reflect upon it,' this among all he knew was the last face that he could have expected to see in that place. He sat down quite coolly and mechanically, thinking and acting as men think and act, by instinct, in a crisis. He seemed to be obeying some pre-ordained plan. The horseman was dark and clean-shaven— the happy posscssoi of one of those handsome Andalusian faces which are in themselves a passport in a world that in its old age still jjcrsists in judging by appearance. Whittaker scrupulously withdrew from the window. He had no desire to overhear thfir conversation. But his eyes were fierce with a sudden anger. The very attitu