"Love! And yet you live here alone!"

"Yes," he went on, "we must have both. They are as necessary to us as
breath. Without them--" he stopped, evidently embarrassed, as if
suddenly aware that he had been talking more to himself than to her and
that in thus forgetting her, he had been more self-revealing than he
would have wished.

She shook her head, plainly puzzled. "But you are young," she said, and
stole another glance at him, adding a little shyly, "at least not very
old, and I feel, I am sure that you too have a broken paw, but when that
is well you will go back to your own country, to cities again. You
couldn't stand it here always."

He looked at her, an enigmatic smile on his lips. "Couldn't I?" he
said. Glancing again at her as he rose, he saw that she seemed weary,
her lashes lay long on her pale cheek. "Oh," with a touch of compunction
in his tone, "I have, as usual, talked far too much. You are tired and
we must go. José," lifting his voice, "as soon as you finish that game."

"The Devil is indeed at your elbow," cried José, flinging down his
cards, "and prompts all you say. We have just this moment finished a
game and Gallito is the winner."

Gallito smiled with bleak geniality. "Has José been wise?" he asked,
rising and replenishing the dying fire.

"Fairly so," Seagreave smiled, "as far as he knows how to be. He has
been up to some of his antics, though. They are beginning to say that
this hillside is haunted."