The following day Pablo and his guide set out at the same hour; but, as the sky was overcast and a disagreeable breeze was blowing which threatened to become a south-westerly gale, they decided on making their walk a short one. Crossing the village green of Aldeacorba, they went along the great slope above the mines to the west, intending to go down into the excavations.

"Nela, I must tell you something that will make you leap with joy," said the blind lad when they were at some distance from the house. "My heart is bursting with happiness.—I feel as if the whole Universe, all the sciences, history, philosophy, natural history—all that I have ever learnt had got inside me, and was dancing in procession. You saw those two gentlemen who were waiting for me yesterday...."

"Don CÁrlos and his brother...."

"He is a famous doctor who has been all over America, making wonderful cures.—He is come to see his brother, and as Don CÁrlos is a great friend of my father's, he asked his brother to examine me. How kind and gentle he is! First he sat talking to me; he asked me a number of questions, and told me all sorts of pleasant and amusing stories. Then he told me to sit quite still; I felt his fingers on my eyelids, and after a long time he said something I did not understand—medical terms, and my father never read me anything about medicine. Then he led me close to the window, and while he examined my eyes with some instrument the room was as quiet.—Then he said to my father: "It is worth trying." They said more, but in a low voice that I might not hear, and I think they talked partly by signs. When the visitors were gone, my father said to me: 'Son of my soul, I cannot conceal from you the joy that is in me. This man, this angel from Heaven, has given me a hope—a very faint hope—but we cling most to a hope when it is smallest. I try to give it up by telling myself it is impossible—no, almost impossible—but it sticks to me like a burr.'—This was what my father said, and I could hear in his voice that he was crying. What are you doing, Nela? Are you dancing?"

"No.—Here I am, close to you!"

"But you used to dance when I told you anything that made me happy. Where shall we go to-day?"

"It is a dull day—we will go as far as Trascava, that is a sheltered spot, and then go down into La Terrible."

"Very well, just as you like.—Oh, Nela! If only it could be true; if God would have pity on me, and grant me the joy of seeing you. Even if I could only see for one day, and were blind again the next, how I would thank Him."

Nela said nothing. After feeling at first intensely happy, she now walked on thoughtfully, with her eyes fixed on the ground.

"Many wonderful things happen in the world," Pablo went on. "And God's mercy works in strange ways—strikes as suddenly as his wrath. It comes upon us unexpectedly, after long punishment and torment, just as his anger falls on us in the midst of happiness which has seemed secure and eternal—do you not think so?"

"Yes—what you hope will be accomplished."

"How do you know?"

"My heart tells me so."

"Your heart tells you! And why should not such warnings come true?" cried Pablo, fervently. "Yes—such chosen souls as yours can, in some cases, foresee the issue. I have noticed it in myself, for, as I am not diverted from self-inspection by seeing things outside me, I have perceived sometimes that I had a whispered presentiment that was quite inexplicable. Then when some event or other has come to pass, I have said to myself with astonishment: 'I knew all this beforehand.'"

"The same thing happens to me," replied Nela. "Yesterday you told me you loved me dearly, and when I got home I said to myself: 'It is very strange, but I knew something of this.'"

"It is wonderful, dear little one, how perfectly our souls are one. United by our own wish and will, nothing is wanting but a bond of union. That bond shall be tied if I really gain the precious sense that I have never enjoyed. The idea of seeing would never have taken possession of my mind if I did not cherish above all things the idea that through it I should love you better. The acquisition of that power can be nothing to me but the faculty of admiring in a new kind of way what I already admire so truly by the way of love.—But I fancy you are sad to-day."

"Yes, I am; and to tell you the truth, I do not know why. I am very happy and very sad, both at once. The day is so gloomy—it would be better if it never were day at all, always night."

"Nay, nay, things are good as they are. Day and night! If God ever grant me to know the difference, how happy I shall be! Why are you stopping?"

"We have come to a dangerous bit. We must turn aside a little way to get to the path."

"Ah! La Trascava! This slippery grass slopes down till it is lost in the chasm. Whatever falls down there does not come up again. Let us go away, Nela; I do not like this place."

"Silly boy, it is a long way from this to the mouth of the chasm. And it is very pretty here to-day."

Nela stood still and detained her companion by the arm, looking down at the mouth of the gulf which opened in the earth, in shape like a funnel. The sloping sides of this narrow, deep basin were covered by extremely fine turf; at the very bottom a large oblong rock lay on the grass among brambles, fennel shrubs and rushes, and an immense variety of gay-colored flowers. The stone looked like a large tongue. You felt, rather than saw, that by the side of it there was an opening, an abyss, hidden by plants, such as Don Quixote had to cut away when he slid into the cavern of Montesinos.

Nela seemed never tired of looking.

"Why do you say that the horrible Trascava looks pretty?" asked Pablo.

"Because it is so full of flowers. Last week they were all dead and over, but now they have bloomed afresh, and it really is lovely to look at. And there are such numbers of birds there, and of butterflies too, sucking honey from the flowers. Choto, Choto, come here—do not frighten the poor little birds."

The dog, who had run down the slope, came galloping back at Nela's call, and the fluttering republic of birds returned to take possession of their common property.

"I have a perfect horror of the place," said Pablo, pulling the girl's arm. "Now, shall we go as far as the mines? I know the way there, and feel on my own ground; we will go round behind el Barco.—Choto, go on in front, do not get under my feet."

They went down a path cut into steps and soon reached the basin formed by digging out the earth and ore. Leaving the zone of vegetation, they suddenly crossed the boundary line of a geological zone, so to speak, an enormous trench, whose sides, wrought by the pick and shovel, displayed an interesting section of stratification, where the different layers showed the greatest variety of colors and earths. This was the place where Teodoro Golfin had fancied himself in the hull of a wrecked vessel, worn away by the waves—and its popular name el Barco (the ship), had been suggested by that very resemblance. By day, however, the spectator was chiefly struck by the sections of the strata with their sulphurous and carboniferous veins, black sedimentary deposits, lignites, in which jet frequently occurred, streaks of ferruginous earth that looked as if they had been mixed with blood, and large, even layers of slate, split in a thousand places by human devices, bristling with splinters and riven into fissures and clefts, looking like wounds seen through a strong magnifier; while a thread of water, stained with oxide of iron, that flowed down the middle, might be taken for blood.

"Where is our seat?" asked the young man. "Let us go there; we shall be sheltered from the wind."

Out of the bottom of the great cutting they went up by a rough foot-path, that had been made between broken stones and earth overgrown with rank fennel, and at the top they sat down under the shelter of an enormous crag, rent across the middle. The two halves of the rock, standing opposite each other, with their jagged faces, looked for all the world like two yawning jaws trying to meet and close.

"How pleasant it is here!" Pablo said. "Sometimes there is a disagreeable draught through this chasm, but I do not feel it to-day. What we hear is the trickling water down inside the bowels of La Trascava."

"It is very quiet to-day," observed Nela. "Would you like to lie down?"

"That is a good idea! Last night I could not sleep, for thinking of all my father had said to me, of the doctor, of my eyes.—All night I felt as if a hand went into my eyes and opened a closed and moss-grown door." As he spoke he stretched himself at full length and laid his head on Nela's knees.

"A door," he went on, "which was quite in my inmost feeling, opened, as I tell you, showing a way into a room where the idea that haunts me was shut up. Oh! Nela of my heart, best beloved, idolized darling, if only God would grant me the sense I lack. Then I should think myself the happiest of men—for I am almost that already, merely from having you to be the friend and companion of my life. Very little is needed to make us two one—nothing but to see you and rejoice in your beauty, with that joy in seeing which I cannot even comprehend, since I have only a vague conception of it. I have a questioning spirit only because I have no power to see for myself. I fancy it will be like a new way of loving you. I think of nothing but your beauty, still, there is something in it which I cannot realize as my own."

"Hark!" said Nela suddenly, with evident interest in something quite distinct from what her friend was saying. "Do not you hear?"

"What?"

"Down in there—La Trascava—it is talking."

"Superstitious child! water cannot talk, my Nela. What language could a driblet of water speak? There are but two things which speak, my sweet: the tongue and the conscience."

"And La Trascava," said Nela, turning paler. "It is a whisper only: 'Yes, yes, yes,' it says. And sometimes I can hear my mother's voice, saying quite plainly. 'My little girl, it is very pleasant down here.'"

"It is all your fancy. Well, fancy talks too; I forgot that. My imagination sometimes chatters so fast, that I have to tell it to be silent. Its voice is loud, persistent, intolerable; that of conscience is deep, calm, convincing; there is no answering or refuting it."

"Now it sounds as if it were crying," said Nela, still listening to the bubbling water. "It is dying away little by little."

Suddenly a light gust came up from the chasm.

"There, it sighed deeply—did not you hear? Now I hear the voice again; it is speaking low, and it says to me in a whisper, a tiny whisper in my ear...."

"Well, what does it say?"

"Nothing," said MarÍa shortly, after a pause. "You say it is all nonsense—you may be right."

"I will get all these absurd ideas out of your head," said the blind youth taking her hand. "We are going to live together all our lives. Oh! Heavenly Father! If I am never to enjoy the blessing of which Thou didst deprive me at my birth, why hast Thou allowed me to hope? Hapless wretch that I am, if I am not born anew under the hands of Doctor Golfin. A new birth indeed—a new life! Oh! my darling, I swear to you by the image of God that exists in my soul, glorious, real and immutable, that you and I will never part by my will. I shall have eyes, Nela, eyes to delight in your presence, and then I will marry you. You will be my beloved wife—life of my life, and the joy and pride of my soul.—And do you say nothing to this even?"

Nela bent her head down over the lad's handsome face; she wished to speak, but could not for emotion.

"And if God will not after all vouchsafe me this mercy," added Pablo, "still you will not leave me, still you will be my wife—unless it horrifies you to think of marrying a blind man. Indeed, my dearest, I ought not to inflict such a burden on you. You will meet some good man who will love you, and who will make you happy. Your wonderful kindness, your noble feelings, your sweet face, must win many hearts and inspire the purest love in all who have to do with you—your future cannot fail to be bright and happy. I swear to you that I shall love you as long as I live; seeing or blind, I devote myself to you before God in the fullest, most perfect, and most unbounded love.—Will you not speak to me, Nela?"

"Yes—I love you dearly—very, very dearly ..." said Nela, putting her face close to his. "But do not be anxious to see me. Perhaps I am not so nice as you fancy."

As she spoke, Nela felt in her pocket and brought out a piece of silvered glass, a dull and useless fragment of a cheap mirror, which had been broken a week since in the Centeno household. In this she looked at herself. The image was all awry, and in consequence of the small size of the looking-glass she was obliged to study it a bit at a time, first one eye and then her forehead, till, holding it farther off, she could command a view of half her face at once. But alas! the result of her investigations was sad enough—as she looked in the glass, the tears started from her eyes.

"Nela, I felt a drop on my forehead—it is raining."

"Yes, my child, it seems to be raining," said Nela with a gulping sob.

"No—you are crying.—Something in my heart tells me so. You are goodness itself; your soul and mine are united by some divine and mysterious bond; they can never be parted—is it not true? they are two halves of one whole.—Are they not?"

"Quite true."

"Your tears give me a plainer answer than words could. You love me do you not, and will always love me, just the same whether I recover my sight or remain blind?"

"The same, just the same!" cried Nela vehemently.

"And will always stay with me?"

"Always."

"Then listen," cried the blind lad in passionate rapture. "If I had to choose between remaining blind and losing you, I would choose...."

"You would choose to remain blind! Oh! merciful Mother of Heaven! how happy—how happy I am!"

"I would choose not to see your sweet face with these eyes, for I can see it in my soul as clearly as truth. You live here, in my heart, and to me you are more lovely and enchanting than anything on earth."

"Oh! yes, yes," cried Nela half-crazed. "I must be beautiful—I must be lovely!"

"Listen," said Pablo, "I have a presentiment, a sure anticipation. It is as though the voice of God within me promised me that I should have my sight, that I shall see you, that we shall be happy. Do you not feel it yourself?"

"I—yes, I feel sure you will see...."

"I shall see your face—what happiness!" cried the blind boy in the high-pitched ecstatic tone, which was peculiar to him in moments of excitement.—"But I see it already, I see it now in my heart as plainly as the truth in my soul."

"Yes, yes, oh! yes," Nela repeated wildly, with wide-open eyes and quivering lips. "It is true, I am, I must be, beautiful!"

"Bless you, sweet one!"

"And you," she said gravely, kissing his forehead. "Now, are you not sleepy?"

"Yes, I am beginning to be sleepy. I did not sleep all night. And I am so comfortable here."

"Then sleep, my child...."

And she began to sing a lullaby. In a few minutes he was asleep; but Nela sat listening to the voice of La Trascava, which said: "Daughter come ... daughter come."