"For the love of God," Gaspar Ruiz murmured.

"Does not all the land belong to you patriots?" the voice on the other
side of the door screamed on. "Are you not a patriot?"

Gaspar Ruiz did not know. "I am a wounded man," he said, apathetically.

All became still inside. Gaspar Ruiz lost the hope of being admitted,
and lay down under the porch just outside the door. He was utterly
careless of what was going to happen to him. All his consciousness
seemed to be concentrated in his neck, where he felt a severe pain. His
indifference as to his fate was genuine. The day was breaking when he
awoke from a feverish doze; the door at which he had knocked in the dark
stood wide open now, and a girl, steadying herself with her outspread
arms, leaned over the threshold. Lying on his back, he stared up at her.
Her face was pale and her eyes were very dark; her hair hung down black
as ebony against her white cheeks; her lips were full and red. Beyond
her he saw another head with long grey hair, and a thin old face with a
pair of anxiously clasped hands under the chin.


VI


"I knew those people by sight," General Santierra would tell his guests
at the dining-table. "I mean the people with whom Gaspar Ruiz found
shelter. The father was an old Spaniard, a man of property ruined by the
revolution. His estates, his house in town, his money, everything he had
in the world had been confiscated by proclamation, for he was a bitter