What a feast it would be, to strike, and strike, and strike! I could drive ten, twenty, fifty nails, into Santa Anna, when I think of Juan." No one had before dared to breathe her boy's name in her hearing.

She herself had never spoken it.

It fell upon the ears of both women like a strain of forgotten music.

They looked at each other with eyes that stirred memory and love to their sweetest depths.

Almost in whispers they began to talk of the dead boy, to recall how lovable, how charming, how affectionate, how obedient he had been.