brother.

"She also died," he said drily.

"Sagrario also dead!" exclaimed Gabriel astounded.

"She is dead to me, which is the same thing. Brother, by all you love
best in the world, do not speak to me of her."

Gabriel understood that he had opened some deep wound by his
inquiries, and so said no more, beginning once more his ascent. During
his absence a terrible event had happened in his brother's life--one
of those events that break up a family and separate for ever those
that survive.

They crossed the gallery covered by the archbishop's archway and
entered the upper cloister called "the Claverias": four arcades
of equal length to those of the lower cloister, but quite bare of
decoration, and with a poverty-stricken aspect. The pavement was
chipped and broken, the four sides had a balustrade running round
between the flat pillars that supported the old beams of the roof. It
had been a provisional work three hundred years ago, and had always
remained in the same state. All along the whitewashed walls, the doors
and windows belonging to the "habitacions" of the Cathedral servants
opened without order or symmetry. These were transmitted with the
office from father to son. The cloister, with its low arcade, looked
like a street having houses on one side only; opposite was the flat
colonnade with its balustrade, against which the pointed branches of
the cypresses in the garden rested. Above the roof of the cloister
could be seen the windows of another row of "habitacions," for nearly