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200 saved up a little something and can supply your share of bread and salt, you shall have Pepa, since she loves you.'

And the share that I must contribute is—how much?' Juan asked.

Two thousand douros!'

"That's equal to ten thousand francs of your money.

Two thousand douros!' said Araquil, very pale. 'Where can I look to find such a sum as that?'

I found it in the ground, I did,' the farmer answered. 'Seek it there!'

"And Tiburcio was not a man to go back on his word when he had once said a thing, not he! All that was left for Araquil to do was to kill himself, as he had threatened, or else go to work with pick and spade and earn the money. Pepa, like a good girl, would not disobey her father, but she was very much in love with the good-looking youngster and would subdue her impatience and wait until Juan had collected the required sum. In their furtive meetings, however, as well as in their conversations in presence of the old man, she did not attempt to conceal from Araquil that her feeling for him was of that nature that forms an indissoluble tie between two beings until it is sanctified by the last sacrament. She had even sworn to him—she had sworn it on the mass-book of her dead mother—that she would never be another's if she could not be his. Such a vow, uttered by a creature as beautiful as the stars in heaven, was well calculated to inspire courage in the heart of a bold man. Juan said to himself: 'Well! yes; yes, I will get them, those two thousand douros! I don't see how I am to get them, but I will get them!'