"Did you know about it?" he exclaimed, in the greatest
astonishment.
"Good gracious, yes," she answered. She walked across to the
window, came back again, pressing her hands together. "So you have
found it too?"
"Who did before me?"
"Your father, Rafael, your father, the first time that I was here,
a little time before we were to leave." She paused. "He came
rushing in as you did just now--not so quickly, not so quickly, he
was weak in the legs, but otherwise just like you." She let her
eyes rest, with a peculiar look, on Rafael's dirty hands. The
hands themselves were not well shaped, they were almost exactly
his father's.
Rafael noticed nothing.
"Had HE found the bed of cement stone, then?"
"Yes. He locked the door behind him. I got up from my chair and
asked him how he dared? He could hardly speak." She paused for a
moment, recalling it all again. "Yes, and it was THAT stuff."
"What did he say, mother?"
She had turned to leave the room.
"Your father believed that I had brought luck to the house."
"And why was it not so, then?"
She faced him quickly. He coloured.
"Pardon, mother, you misunderstood me.
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