 moved on, stealthy, absorbed, undecided; asking myself
earnestly: »What on earth am I going to do with him?« That exclusive
preoccupation of my mind was as dangerous to Señor Ortega as typhoid fever would
have been. It strikes me that this comparison is very exact. People recover from
typhoid fever, but generally the chance is considered poor. This was precisely
his case. His chance was poor; though I had no more animosity towards him than a
virulent disease has against the victim it lays low. He really would have
nothing to reproach me with; he had run up against me, unwittingly, as a man
enters an infected place, and now he was very ill, very ill indeed. No, I had no
plans against him. I had only the feeling that he was in mortal danger.
    I believe that men of the most daring character (and I make no claim to it)
often do shrink from the logical processes of thought. It is only the Devil,
they say, that loves logic. But I was not a devil. I was not even a victim of
the Devil. It was only that I had given up the direction of my intelligence
before the problem; or rather that the problem had dispossessed my intelligence
and reigned in its stead side by side with a superstitious awe. A dreadful order
seemed to lurk in the darkest shadows of life. The madness of that Carlist with
the soul of a Jacobin, the vile fears of Baron H., that excellent organizer of
supplies, the contact of their two ferocious stupidities, and last, by a remote
disaster at sea, my love brought into direct contact with the situation: all
that was enough to make one shudder - not at the chance, but at the design.
    For it was my love that was called upon to act here, and nothing else. And
love which elevates us above all safeguards, above restraining principles, above
all littlenesses of self-possession, yet keeps its feet always firmly on earth,
remains marvellously practical in its suggestions.
    I discovered that however much I had imagined I had given up Rita, that
whatever agonies I had gone through, my hope of her had never been lost. Plucked
out, stamped down, torn to shreds, it had remained with me secret, intact,
invincible. Before the danger of the situation it sprang, full of life, up in
arms - the undying child of immortal love. What incited me was independent of
honour and compassion; it was the prompting of a love supreme, practical,
remorseless in its aim; it was
