The first thing I noted, on opening my eyes, was that Castro had
gone already; I was annoyed. He might have called me. However, we had
arranged everything the evening before. The broad day, penetrating
through the passage, diffused a semicircle of twilight over the
flooring. It extended as far as the emplacement of the fire, black and
cold now with a gray heap of ashes in the middle. Farther away in the
darkness, beyond the reach of light, Seraphina on her bed of leaves did
not stir. But what was that hat doing there? Castro's hat. It asserted
its existence more than it ever did on the head of its master; black and
rusty, like a battered cone of iron, reposing on a wide flange near the
ashes. Then he was not gone. He would not start to walk three leagues,
bare-headed. He would a
