Those Ortegas were the owners of the house, or rather the man owned the house which the woman ruled with a perpetually irritated masterfulness. They had established themselves there some years ago; and the blue sign-board over the ground floor windows, proclaiming that I. Ortega sold within oranges, olives and wine in a wholesale way, had become faded with the rains of many autumns before Stephen found rest in the interior pavilion after his long wanderings. The couple were well-to-do. José, one of the three children of prosperous Biscayan cultivators, had wandered away early, seeking martial distinction in the ranks of colonial troops. Returning, he found for himself in Seville a wife, and then after many changes had found also, what to him seemed, and indeed was, a fortune in commerce far from his native land. His brother, the genius of the family, had become a priest and now was in charge of a hamlet-full of fiery Basque souls which he endeavoured to keep in the path of godliness with fierce denunciations, with menacing words, with gloomy fanaticism, knowing nothing of the world; hating it, for it was the hospitable playground of the devil, hardly able to bring himself to tolerate the impious sunshine that, by an inexplicable oversight of the Creator, shone indiscriminately upon the believing and upon the wicked. A tall, lean priest with a narrow forehead and an ascetic yet coarse face; moving amongst hot-headed and fearless men, respected, admired and feared wherever he went, indefatigable and keen in his shabby, black, close-fitting cassock, amongst those reckless sinners; ready to leap, for the defeat of evil and error, out of his ominous and concentrated silence, like a sword from the scabbard in the hand of an unforgiving God. A mystical fanatic who in the darkness of black nights saw visions, who in the silence of barren hills heard voices; who living amongst simple men and women felt clearly that he was living in a world inhabited by damned souls. A man of great faith who battled for his belief in an obscure and arid valley of the Pyrenees, wearing out his unyielding heart with the rage, the humiliation, the bitterness of his inefficiency in that terrible contest against the victorious Destroyer of mankind.

The youngest of the three children, a girl, married a mountaineer possessor of a patch of ground and of a ruinous stone dwelling that stood in the unproductive disorder of a narrow valley bestrewn with grey boulders. The fellow, handsome, sinewy and brown-faced, went through life singing: a royalist, a smuggler and a gay companion, very popular amongst the men of the hills, who were ready any day to die for their King and their fueros. One evening he went away singing, carbine in hand, into the purple confusion of towering peaks—and never returned. Doubtless he died in good company. And even in these peaceful times the frontier-guards talk to this day of that sharp and bloody affair in the pass, where a wooden cross stretches its black arms in stiff indifference, over the common grave of the breakers and the guardians of the law.

The widow, always delicate, sickened seriously soon after. The priest brother came, confessed, absolved, buried her—and took the orphans: two girls.

The priest was poor—very poor. Poor with his own poverty and with all the indigence of his flock. That he was wealthy enough to endow both girls with the Everlasting Treasure, he never doubted. Yet he suffered to see them exposed to those privations which for himself he considered to be a reward too splendid for his merits. He corresponded irregularly with his brother José—with that righteous man, amassing wealth, away there in the magnificent and sinful city. He wrote him of his difficulties. He got an answer written by his sister-in-law. The virtuous Dolores said her husband had consulted her. Well, as to money, commerce had its exigencies and money was scarce. But they were childless. They would take one of the girls, care tenderly for her, and, eventually, marry her to a man of good repute—if Heaven so willed. José on his annual business tour to Murcia would on his return call on his brother and take the child. She, Dolores, would be a mother to a deserving and obedient girl. And the child would have many advantages. They knew many good people.... Father Ortega read on for four pages, with a thoughtful face, at last with a frown. He had doubts. On the other hand he trusted his brother. He believed in the wickedness of mankind with all the innocence of his soul. With equal innocence he believed in the virtue of Ortegas. In the appalling desert of human sinfulness the blood of his race flowed pure like a miraculous stream. José had been a soldier. What of that! There had been soldiers who also had been saints. José, if no saint, would be a good Christian. His own brother! Yes! One of the little ones must go. She also was an Ortega. His parentage was a safeguard for the child. He could not believe in the possibility of any of his kin falling away from grace. He would not even think of it. It would be too terrible.

The brothers met after many years. Away from his "Dolocita, my dearest!" José bore himself with a free joviality becoming a successful merchant who had not quite forgotten his warlike youth. They talked together of old times, of the dead, of the old people, of the sister they had loved much. Before the stern soldier of the Faith the ex-sergeant of colonial troops was like a child: affectionate and respectful—a little awed. Father Ortega asked about the King—the rightful King—who also lived in Paris. Had José seen him? Yes? Good! A better time was coming. With the rightful monarch the fear of God would reign in the land. The time would come! And Father Ortega grew animated, talked loud. The two little girls, standing close together, very quiet, listened open-eyed. As the time for separation approached the priest became tender, very solemn too. "Mind, José," he said impressively, "I deliver to your care a Christian soul. See that you do your duty. A sacred charge!" Poor José was touched and not a little discomposed. He repeated: "Good! Good! Of course! How else?"—and looked down at his imposing charge. He saw only a barelegged girl of about twelve with tumbled brown hair and large grey eyes that streamed with tears. The other one was crying too. He felt moved to tears himself. "Brother," he blubbered out, "I will take ... take ... both of them ... Poor ... things. Dolocita won't mind!" But the priest refused with an air both exalted and austere. Theresa must remain under his influence. That child had dispositions ... a sacred spark that must be nursed into a flame. Later on if there was need for a little money to help her into a convent of her choice he would ask his brother. She was different from the younger, Rita. She had a vocation—-a sacred spark. As he spoke his sunken eyes glimmered, like a pair of votive candles before a rude altar, in the gloom of a wayside shrine.

The sisters parted in the dust of a narrow road that winds along the bottom of the shallow and rocky valley. The brothers clasped each other in a long embrace, then the younger gave his blessing to the elder man, who stood with bared head before the uplifted hand. José and Rita had to walk some little distance to the village where José's conveyance awaited him. Father Ortega holding Theresa by the hand turned his back upon the setting sun and stood looking at them as they went on, diminishing in the distance, under the escarpment of the stony cliffs. The priest's shadow fell slender and long on the white dust of the path as if darting after the departing figures; and the shorter shadow of the child, pressing to his side, mingled with it for a part of its length. The two made as though only one distorted and blank image of a giant hound, pointing with a fantastically elongated finger at the young wanderer going into the unknown. The priest stood silent, the child sobbed gently by his side; and they remained gazing till José and Rita disappeared on a turn of the path behind a big detached bush, crowned aslant, with a solitary pine waving on its summit: a round, grey boulder that lay on the brown flatness of the sward like an enormous and aged head under a sombre and plumed béret.