Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/89

Rh He laid the mandolin down on the ground, and began staring with a peculiarly sad expression at the dying fire. His face, at once fierce and noble-looking, reminded me, as the firelight fell on it, of Milton's Satan. Like him, perchance, my comrade was musing over the home he had forfeited, the exile he had earned, by some misdeed. I tried to revive the conversation, but so absorbed was he in melancholy thought, that he gave me no answer.

The old woman had already gone to rest in a corner of the room, behind a ragged rug hung on a rope. The little girl had followed her into this retreat, sacred to the fair sex. Then my guide rose, and suggested that I should go with him to the stable. But at the word Don José, waking, as it were, with a start, inquired sharply whither he was going.

"To the stable," answered my guide.

"What for? the horses have been fed! You can sleep here. The señor will give you leave."

"I'm afraid the señor's horse is sick. I'd like the señor to see it. Perhaps he'd know what should be done for it."

It was quite clear to me that Antonio wanted to speak to me apart.

But I did not care to rouse Don José's suspicions, and being as we were, I thought far the