In Kedar's Tents

‘The woman who loves you is at once your detective and accomplice.’

The old priest was walking leisurely up the avenue towards the Casa Barenna when the branches of a dwarf ilex were pushed aside, and there came to him from their leafy concealment, not indeed a wood-nymph, but Señora Barenna, with her finger at her lips.

‘Hush!’ she said; ‘he is here.’

And from the anxious and excited expression of her face it became apparent that madame’s nerves were astir.

‘Who is here?’

‘Why, Esteban Larralde, of course.’

‘Ah!’ said Concha patiently.  ‘But need we for that hide behind the bushes and walk on the flower borders?  Life would be much simpler, señora, if people would only keep to the footpath.  Less picturesque, I allow you, but simpler.  Shall I climb up a tree?’

The lady cast her eyes up to heaven and heaved an exaggerated sigh.

‘Ah—what a tragedy life is!’ she whispered, apparently to the angels, but loud enough for her companion to hear.

‘Or a farce,’ said Concha, ‘according to our reading of the part.  Where is Señor Larralde?’

‘Oh, he has gone to the fruit garden with Julia—there is a high wall all round, and one cannot see.  She may be murdered by this time.  I knew he was coming from the manner in which she ran downstairs.  She walks at other times.’

Concha smiled rather grimly.

‘She is not the first to do that,’ he said, ‘and many have stumbled on the stairs in their haste.’

‘Ah!  You are a hard man—a terrible man with no heart.  And I have no one to sympathise with me.  No one knows what I suffer.  I never sleep at night—not a wink—but lie and think of my troubles.  Julia will not obey me.  I have warned her not to rouse me to anger—and she laughs at me.  She persists in seeing this terrible Esteban Larralde—a Carlist, if you please.’

‘We are all as God made us,’ said Concha—’with embellishments added by the Evil One,’ he added, in a lower tone.

‘And now I am going to see General Vincente.  I shall tell him to send soldiers.  This man’s presence is intolerable—I am not obeyed in my own house,’ cried the lady.  ‘I have ordered the carriage to meet me at the lower gate.  I dare not drive away from my own door.  Ah! what a tragedy!’

‘I will go with you, since you are determined to go,’ said Concha.

‘What!  And leave Julia here with that terrible man?’

‘Yes,’ answered the priest.  ‘Happiness is a dangerous thing to meddle with.  There is so little of it in the world, and it lasts so short a time.’

Señora Barenna indicated by a sigh and her attitude that she had had no experience in the matter.  As a simple fact, she had been enabled all through her life to satisfy her own desires—the subtlest form of misfortune.

‘Then you would have Julia marry this terrible man,’ said the lady, shielding her face from the sun with the black fan which she always carried.

‘I am too old and too stupid to take any active part in my neighbours’ affairs.  It is only the young and inexperienced who are competent to do that,’ answered the priest.

‘But you say you are fond of Julia.’

‘Yes,’ said the priest quietly.

‘I wonder why.’

‘So do I,’ he said in a tone that Señora Barenna never understood.

‘You are always kinder to her than you are to me,’ went on the lady in her most martyred manner.  ‘Her penances are always lighter than mine.  You are patient with her and not with me.  And I am sure I have never done you any injury—’

The old Padre smiled.  Perhaps he was thinking of those illusions which she had during the years pulled down one by one—for the greater peace of his soul.

‘There is the carriage,’ he said.  ‘Let us hasten to General Vincente—if you wish to see him.’

In a few minutes they were rattling along the road, while Esteban Larralde and Julia sat side by side in the shade of the great wall that surrounded the fruit garden.  And one at least of them was gathering that quick harvest of love which is like the grass of the field, inasmuch as to-day it is, and to-morrow is not.

General Vincente was at home.  He was one of those men who are happy in finding themselves where they are wanted.  So many have, on the contrary, the misfortune to be always absent when they are required, and the world soon learns to progress without them.

‘That man—that Larralde is in Ronda,’ said Señora Barenna, bursting in on the General’s solitude.  Vincente smiled, and nevertheless exchanged a quick glance with Concha, who confirmed the news by a movement of his shaggy eyebrows.

‘Ah, these young people!’ exclaimed the General with a gay little sigh.  ‘What it is to be young and in love!  But be seated, Iñez—be seated.  Padre—a chair.’

‘What do you propose to do?’ asked Señora Barenna breathlessly, for she was stout and agitated and had hurried up the steps.

‘When, my dear Iñez—when?’

‘But now—with this man in Ronda.  You know quite well he is dangerous.  He is a Carlist.  It was only the other day that you received an anonymous letter saying that your life was in danger.  Of course it was from the Carlists, and Larralde has something to do with it; or that Englishman—that Señor Conyngham with the blue eyes.  A man with blue eyes—bah!  Of course he is not to be trusted.’

The receiver of the anonymous warning seemed to be amused.

‘A little sweeping, your statements, my dear Iñez.  Is it not so?  Now, a lemonade! the afternoon is warm.’

He rose and rang the bell.

‘My nerves,’ whispered the Señora to Concha.  ‘My nerves—they are so easily upset.’

‘The liqueurs,’ said the General to the servant with perfect gravity.

‘You must take steps at once,’ urged Señora Barenna when they were alone again.  She was endowed with a magnificent imagination without much wisdom to hold it in check, and at times persuaded herself that she was in the midst, and perhaps the leader, of a dangerous whirl of political events.

‘I will, my dear Iñez; I will.  And we will take a little maraschino, to collect ourselves, eh?’

And his manner quite indicated that it was he and not Madame Barenna who was upset.  The lady consented, and proceeded to what she took to be a consultation, which in reality was a monologue.  During this she imparted a vast deal of information, and received none in return, which is the habit of voluble people, and renders them exceedingly dangerous to themselves and useful to others.

Presently the two men conducted her to her carriage, with many reassurances.

‘Never fear, Iñez; never fear.  He will be gone before you return,’ said the General, with a wave of the hand.  He had consented to invite Julia to accompany Estella and himself to Madrid, where she would be out of harm’s way.

The two men then returned to the General’s study, and sat down in that silence which only grows to perfection on the deep soil of a long-standing friendship.  Vincente was the first to speak.

‘I have had a letter from Madrid,’ he said, looking gravely at his companion.  ‘My correspondent tells me that Conyngham has not yet presented his letter of introduction, and, so far as is ascertainable, has not arrived in the capital.  He should have been there six weeks ago.’

The Padre took a pinch of snuff, and held the box out towards his companion, who waved it aside.  The General was too dainty a man to indulge in such a habit.

‘He possessed no money, so he cannot have fallen a victim to thieves,’ said Concha.

‘He was accompanied by a good guide, and an honest enough scoundrel, so he cannot have lost his way,’ observed the General, with a queer expression of optimistic distress on his face.

‘His movements were not always above suspicion—’ the priest closed his snuff-box and laboriously replaced it in the pocket of his cassock.

‘That letter—it was a queer business!’ and the General laughed.

‘Most suspicious.’

There was a silence, during which Concha sneezed twice with enjoyment and more noise than is usually considered necessary.

‘And your letter,’ he said, carefully folding his handkerchief into squares; ‘that anonymous letter of warning that your life is threatened—is that true?  It is the talk of Ronda.’

‘Ah, that!’ laughed Vincente.  ‘Yes, it is true enough.  It is not the first time—a mere incident, that is all.’

‘That which the Señora Barenna said just now,’ observed the priest slowly, ‘about our English friend—may be true.  Sometimes thoughtless people arrive at a conclusion which eludes more careful minds.’

‘Yes—my dear Padre—yes.’

The two grey-headed men looked at each other for a moment in silence.

‘And yet you trust him,’ said Concha.

‘Despite myself, despite my better judgment, my dear friend.’

The priest rose and went to the window which overlooked the garden.

‘Estella is in the garden?’ he asked, and received no answer.

‘I know what you are thinking,’ said the General.  ‘You are thinking that we should do well to tell Estella of these distressing suspicions.’

‘For you it does not matter,’ replied the priest.  ‘It is a mere incident, as you say.  Your life has been attempted before, and you killed both the men with your own hand, if I recollect aright.’

Vincente shrugged his shoulders and looked rather embarrassed.

‘But a woman,’ went on Concha, ‘cannot afford to trust a man against her better judgment.’

By way of reply the General rose and rang the bell, requesting the servant when he answered the summons to ask the señorita to spare a few moments of her time.

They exchanged no further words until Estella came hurrying into the room with a sudden flush on her cheeks and something in her dark eyes that made her father say at once—

‘It is not bad news that we have, my child.’

Estella glanced at Concha and said nothing.  His wise old eyes rested for a moment on her face with a little frown of anxiety.

‘We have had a visit from the Señora Barenna,’ went on the General, ‘and she is anxious that we should invite Julia to go to Madrid with us.  It appears that Esteban Larralde is still attempting to force his attentions on Julia, and is at present in Ronda.  You will not object to her coming with us?’

‘Oh no,’ said Estella without much interest.

‘We have also heard rather disquieting news about our pleasant friend, Mr. Conyngham,’ said the General, examining the tassel of his sword.  ‘And I think it is only right to tell you that I fear we have been deceived in him.’

There was silence for a few moments, and then Vincente spoke again.

‘In these times, one is almost compelled to suspect one’s nearest friends.  Much harm may be done by being over-trustful, and appearances are so consistently against Mr. Conyngham that it would be folly to ignore them.’

The General waited for Estella to make some comment, and after a pause continued:

‘He arrived in Ronda under singularly unfortunate circumstances, and I was compelled to have his travelling companion shot.  Then occurred that affair of the letter, which he gave to Julia—an affair which has never been explained.  Conyngham would have to show me that letter before I should be quite satisfied.  I obtained for him an introduction to General Espartero in Madrid.  That was six or seven weeks ago.  The introduction has not been presented, nor has Conyngham been seen in Madrid.  In England, on his own confession, he was rather a scamp; why not the same in Spain?’

The General spread out his hands in his favourite gesture of deprecation.  He had not made the world, and while deeply deploring that such things could be, he tacitly admitted that the human race had not been, creatively speaking, a complete success.

Father Concha was brushing invisible grains of snuff from his cassock sleeve and watching Estella with anxious eyes.

‘I only tell you, my dear,’ continued the General, ‘so that we may know how to treat Mr. Conyngham should we meet him in Madrid.  I liked him.  I like a roving man—and many Englishmen are thus wanderers—but appearances are very much against him.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Estella quietly.  ‘Yes.’

She moved towards the door, and there turning looked at Concha.

‘Does the Padre stay to dinner?’ she asked.

‘No, my child, thank you.  No; I have affairs at home.’

Estella went out of the room, leaving a queer silence behind her.

Presently Concha rose.

‘I, too, am going to Madrid,’ he said.  ‘It is an opportunity to press my claim for the payment of my princely stipend, now two years overdue.’

He walked home on the shady side of the street, exchanging many salutations, pausing now and then to speak to a friend.  Indeed, nearly every passer-by counted himself as such.  In his bare room, where the merest necessities of life scarce had place, he sat down thoughtfully.  The furniture, the few books, his own apparel, bespoke the direst poverty.  This was one who in his simplicity read his Master’s words quite literally, and went about his work with neither purse nor scrip.  The priest presently rose and took from a shelf an old wooden box quaintly carved and studded with iron nails.  A search in the drawer of the table resulted in the finding of a key and the final discovery of a small parcel at the bottom of the box which contained letters and other papers.

‘The rainy day—it comes at last,’ said the Padre Concha, counting out his little stock of silver with the care that only comes from the knowledge that each coin represents a self-denial.

‘I do believe yourself against yourself.’

Neither Estella nor her father had a great liking for the city of Madrid, which indeed is at no time desirable.  In the winter it is cold, in the summer exceedingly hot, and during the changes of the seasons of a treacherous weather difficult to surpass.  The social atmosphere was no more genial at the period with which we deal.  For it blew hot and cold, and treachery marked every change.

Although the Queen Regent seemed to be nearing at last a successful issue to her long and eventful struggle against Don Carlos, she had enemies nearer home whose movements were equally dangerous to the throne of the child queen.

‘I cannot afford to have an honest soldier so far removed from the capital,’ said Christina, who never laid aside the woman while playing the Queen, as Vincente kissed her hand on presenting himself at Court.  The General smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

‘What did she say?  What did she say?’ the intriguers whispered eagerly as the great soldier made his way towards the door, with the haste of one who was no courtier.  But they received no answer.

The General had taken a suite of rooms in one of the hotels on the Puerta del Sol, and hurried thither, well pleased do have escaped so easily from a palace where self-seeking—the grim spirit that haunts the abodes of royalty—had long reigned supreme.  There was, the servants told him, a visitor in the salon—one who had asked for the General, and on learning of his absence had insisted on being received by the señorita.

‘That sounds like Conyngham,’ muttered the General, unbuckling his sword—for he had but one weapon, and wore it in the presence of the Queen and her enemies alike.

It was indeed Conyngham, whose gay laugh Vincente heard before he crossed the threshold of Estella’s drawing-room.  The Englishman was in uniform, and stood with his back turned towards the door by which the General entered.

‘It is Señor Conyngham,’ said Estella at once, in a quiet voice, ‘who has been wounded and six weeks in the hospital.’

‘Yes,’ said Conyngham.  ‘But I am well again now!  And I got my appointment while I was still in the Sisters’ care.’

He laughed, though his face was pale and thin, and approached the General with extended hand.  The General had come to Madrid with the intention of refusing to take that hand, and those who knew him said that this soldier never swerved from his purpose.  He looked for a moment into Conyngham’s eyes, and then shook hands with him.  He did not disguise the hesitation, which was apparent to both Estella and the Englishman.

‘How were you wounded?’ he asked.

‘I was stabbed in the back on the Toledo road, ten miles from here.’

‘Not by a robber—not for your money?’

‘No one ever hated me or cared for me on that account,’ laughed Conyngham.

‘Then who did it?’ asked General Vincente, unbuttoning his gloves.

Conyngham hesitated.

‘A man with whom I quarrelled on the road,’ he made reply; but it was no answer at all, as hearers and speaker alike recognised in a flash of thought.

‘He left me for dead on the road, but a carter picked me up and brought me to Madrid, to the hospital of the Hermanas, where I have been ever since.’

There were flowers on the table, and the General stooped over them with a delicate appreciation of their scent.  He was a great lover of flowers, and indeed had a sense of the beautiful quite out of keeping with the colour of his coat.

‘You must beware,’ he said, ‘now that you wear the Queen’s uniform.  There is treachery abroad, I fear.  Even I have had an anonymous letter of warning.’

‘I should like to know who wrote it,’ exclaimed Conyngham, with a sudden flash of anger in his eyes.  The General laughed pleasantly.

‘So should I,’ he said.  ‘Merely as a matter of curiosity.’

And he turned towards the door, which was opened at this moment by a servant.

‘A gentleman wishing to see me—an Englishman, as it would appear,’ he continued, looking at the card.

‘By the way,’ said Conyngham, as the General moved away, ‘I am instructed to inform you that I am attached to your staff as extra aide-de-camp during your stay in Madrid.’

The General nodded and left Estella and Conyngham alone in the drawing-room.  Conyngham turned on Estella.

‘So that I have a right to be near you,’ he said, ‘which is all that I want.’

He spoke lightly enough, as was his habit; but Estella, who was wise in those matters that women know, preferred not to meet his eyes, which were grave and deep.

‘Such things are quickly said,’ Estella retorted.

‘Yes—and it takes a long time to prove them.’

The General had left his gloves on the table.  Estella took them up and appeared to be interested in them.  ‘Perhaps a lifetime,’ she suggested.

‘I ask no less, señorita.’

‘Then you ask much.’

‘And I give all—though that is little enough.’

They spoke slowly—not bandying words but exchanging thoughts.  Estella was grave.  Conyngham’s attitude was that which he ever displayed to the world—namely, one of cheerful optimism, as behoved a strong man who had not yet known fear.

‘Is it too little, señorita?’ he asked.

She was sitting at the table and would not look up—neither would she answer his question.  He was standing quite close to her—upright in his bright uniform, his hand on his sword—and all her attention was fixed on the flowers which had called forth the General’s unspoken admiration.  She touched them with fingers hardly lighter than his.

‘Now that I think of it,’ said Conyngham after a pause, ‘what I give is nothing.’

Estella’s face wore a queer little smile, as of a deeper knowledge.

‘Nothing at all,’ continued the Englishman.  ‘For I have nothing to give, and you know nothing of me.’

‘Three months ago,’ answered Estella, ‘we had never heard of you—and you had never seen me,’ she added, with a little laugh.

‘I have seen nothing else since,’ Conyngham replied deliberately; ‘for I have gone about the world a blind man.’

‘In three months one cannot decide matters that affect a whole lifetime,’ said the girl.

‘This matter decided itself in three minutes, so far as I am concerned, señorita, in the old palace at Ronda.  It is a matter that time is powerless to affect one way or the other.’

‘With some people; but you are hasty and impetuous.  My father said it of you—and he is never mistaken.’

‘Then you do not trust me, señorita?’

Estella had turned away her face so that he could only see her mantilla and the folds of her golden hair gleaming through the black lace.  She shrugged her shoulders.

‘It is not due to yourself, nor to all who know you in Spain, if I do,’ she said.

‘All who know me?’

‘Yes,’ she continued; ‘Father Concha, Señora Barenna, my father, and others at Ronda.’

‘Ah!  And what leads them to mistrust me?’

‘Your own actions,’ replied Estella.

And Conyngham was too simple-minded, too inexperienced in such matters, to understand the ring of anxiety in her voice.

‘I do not much mind what the rest of the world thinks of me,’ he said; ‘I have never owed anything to the world nor asked anything from it.  They are welcome to think what they like.  But with you it is different.  Is it possible, señorita, to make you trust me?’

Estella did not answer at once.  After a pause she gave an indifferent jerk of the head.

‘Perhaps,’ she said.

‘If it is possible, I will do it.’

‘It is quite easy,’ she answered, raising her head and looking out of the window with an air that seemed to indicate that her interests lay without and not in this room at all.

‘How can I do it?’

She gave a short, hard laugh, which to experienced ears would have betrayed her instantly.

‘By showing me the letter you wrote to Julia Barenna,’ she said.

‘I cannot do that.’

‘No,’ she said significantly.  A woman fighting for her own happiness is no sparing adversary.

‘Will nothing else than the sight of that letter satisfy you, señorita?’

Her profile was turned towards him—delicate and proud, with the perfect chiselling of outline that only comes with a long descent, and bespeaks the blood of gentle ancestors.  For Estella Vincente had in her veins blood that was counted noble in Spain—the land of a bygone glory.

‘Nothing,’ she answered.  ‘Though the question of my being satisfied is hardly of importance.  You asked me to trust you, and you make it difficult by your actions.  In return I ask a proof, that is all.’

‘Do you want to trust me?’

He had come a little closer to her, and was grave enough now.

‘Why do you ask that?’ she inquired in a low voice.

‘Do you want to trust me?’ he asked, and it is to be supposed that he was able to detect an infinitesimal acquiescent movement of her head.

‘Then, if that letter is in existence, you shall have it,’ he said.  ‘You say that my actions have borne evidence against me.  I shall trust to action and not to words to refute that evidence.  But you must give me time—will you do that?’

‘You always ask something.’

‘Yes, señorita, from you; but from no one else in the world.’

He gave a sudden laugh and walked to the window, where he stood looking at her.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘I shall be asking all my life from you.  Perhaps that is why we were created, señorita—I to ask, you to give.  Perhaps that is happiness, Estella.’

She raised her eyes but did not meet his, looking past him through the open window.  The hotel was situated at the lower end of the Puerta del Sol—the quiet end, and farthest removed from the hum of the market and the busy sounds of traffic.  These only came in the form of a distant hum, like the continuous roar of surf upon an unseen shore.  Below the windows a passing waterseller plied his trade, and his monotonous cry of ‘Agua-a-a!  Agua-a-a!’ rose like a wail—like the voice of one crying in that human wilderness where solitude reigns as surely as in the desert.

For a moment Estella glanced at Conyngham gravely, and his eyes were no less serious.  They were not the first, but only two out of many millions, to wonder what happiness is and where it hides in this busy world.

They had not spoken or moved when the door was again opened by a servant, who bowed towards Conyngham and then stood aside to allow ingress to one who followed on his heels.  This was a tall man, white-haired, and white of face.  Indeed, his cheeks had the dead pallor of paper, and seemed to be drawn over the cheekbones at such tension as gave to the skin a polish like that of fine marble.  One sees many such faces in London streets, and they usually indicate suffering, either mental or physical.

The stranger came forward with a perfect lack of embarrassment, which proved him to be a man of the world.  His bow to Estella clearly indicated that his business lay with Conyngham.  He was the incarnation of the Continental ideal of the polished cold Englishman, and had the air of a diplomate such as this country sends to foreign Courts to praise or blame, to declare friendship or war with the same calm suavity and imperturbable politeness.

‘I come from General Vincente,’ he said to Conyngham, ‘who will follow in a moment, when he has despatched some business which detains him.  I have a letter to the General, and am, in fact, in need of his assistance.’

He broke off, turning to Estella, who was moving towards the door.

‘I was especially instructed,’ he said quickly to her, ‘to ask you not to leave us.  You were, I believe, at school with my nieces in England, and when my business, which is of the briefest, is concluded, I have messages to deliver to you from Mary and Amy Mainwaring.’

Estella smiled a little and resumed her seat.  Then the stranger turned to Conyngham.

‘The General told me,’ he went on in his cold voice, without a gleam of geniality or even of life in his eyes, ‘that if I followed the servant to the drawing-room I should find here an English aide-de-camp who is fully in his confidence, and upon whose good-nature and assistance I could rely.’

‘I am for the time General Vincente’s aide-de-camp, and I am an Englishman,’ answered Conyngham.

The stranger bowed.

‘I did not explain my business to General Vincente,’ said he, ‘who asked me to wait until he came, and then tell the story to you both at one time.  In the meantime I was to introduce myself to you.’

Conyngham waited in silence.

‘My name is Sir John Pleydell,’ said the stranger quietly.

‘He makes no friend who never made a foe.’

Conyngham remembered the name of Pleydell well enough, and glanced sharply at Estella, recollecting that the General received the ‘Times’ from London.  Before he had time to make an answer, and indeed he had none ready, the General came into the room.

‘Ah!’ said Vincente in his sociable manner, ‘I see you know each other already—so an introduction is superfluous.  And now we will have Sir John’s story.  Be seated, my dear sir.  But first—a little refreshment.  It is a dusty day—a lemonade?’

Sir John declined, his manner strikingly cold and reserved beside the genial empressement of General Vincente.  In truth the two men seemed to belong to opposite poles—the one of cold and the other of heat.  Sir John had the chill air of one who had mixed among his fellow men only to see their evil side; for the world is a cold place to those that look on it with a chilling glance.  General Vincente, on the other hand, whose life had been passed in strife and warfare, seemed ready to welcome all comers as friends and to hold out the hand of good-fellowship to rich and poor alike.

Conyngham shrugged his shoulders with a queer smile.  Here was a quandary requiring a quicker brain than his.  He did not even attempt to seek a solution to his difficulties, and the only thought in his mind was a characteristic determination to face them courageously.  He drew forward a chair for Sir John Pleydell, his heart stirred with that sense of exhilaration which comes to some in moments of peril.

‘I will not detain you long,’ began the new-comer, with an air slightly suggestive of the law court, ‘but there are certain details which I am afraid I must inflict upon you, in order that you may fully understand my actions.’

The remark was addressed to General Vincente, although the speaker appeared to be demanding Conyngham’s attention in the first instance.  The learned gentlemen of the Bar thus often address the jury through the ears of the judge.

General Vincente had seated himself at the table and was drawing his scented pocket-handkerchief across his moustache reflectively.  He was not, it was obvious, keenly interested, although desirous of showing every politeness to the stranger.  In truth, such Englishmen as brought their affairs to Spain at this time were not as a rule highly desirable persons or a credit to their country.  Estella was sitting near the window, rather behind her father, and Conyngham stood by the fireplace, facing them all.

‘You perhaps know something of our English politics,’ continued Sir John Pleydell, and the General making a little gesture indicative of a limited but sufficient knowledge, went on to say—‘of the Chartists more particularly?’

The General bowed.  Estella glanced at Conyngham, who was smiling.

‘One cannot call them a party, as I have heard them designated in Spain,’ said Sir John parenthetically.  ‘They are quite unworthy of so distinguished a name.  These Chartists consist of the most ignorant people in the land—the rabble, in fact, headed by a few scheming malcontents: professional agitators who are not above picking the pockets of the poor.  Many capitalists and landowners have suffered wrong and loss at the hands of these disturbers of the peace, none—’  He paused and gave a sharp sigh which seemed to catch him unawares, and almost suggested that the man had, after all, or had at one time possessed, a heart.  ‘None more severely than myself,’ he concluded.

The General’s face instantly expressed the utmost concern.

‘My dear sir,’ he murmured.

‘For many years,’ continued Sir John hurriedly, as if resenting anything like sympathy, as all good Britons do, ‘the authorities acted in an irresolute and foolish manner, not daring to put down the disturbances with a firm hand.  At length, however, a riot of a more serious character at a town in Wales necessitated the interference of the military.  The ringleaders were arrested, and for some time the authorities were in considerable doubt as to what to do to them.  I interested myself strongly in the matter—having practised the law in my younger days—and was finally enabled to see my object carried out.  These men were arraigned, not as mere brawlers and rioters, but under a charge of high treason—a much more serious affair for them.’

He broke off with a harsh laugh, which was only a matter of the voice, for his marble face remained unchanged, and probably had not at any time the power of expressing mirth.

‘The ringleaders of the Newport riots were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, which served my purpose excellently.’

Sir John Pleydell spoke with that cynical frankness which seems often to follow upon a few years devoted to practice at the Common Law Bar, where men in truth spend their days in dissecting the mental diseases of their fellow creatures, and learn to conclude that a pure and healthy mind is possessed by none.  He moved slightly in his chair, and seemed to indicate that he had made his first point.

‘I hope,’ he said, addressing Conyngham directly, ‘that I am not fatiguing you?’

‘Not at all,’ returned the younger Englishman coolly; ‘I am much interested.’

The General was studying the texture of his pocket-handkerchief.  Estella’s face had grown cold and set.  Her eyes from time to time turned towards Conyngham.  Sir John Pleydell was not creating a good impression.

‘I will now come to the more personal part of my story,’ went on that gifted speaker, ‘and proceed to explain my reason for inflicting it upon you.’

He still spoke directly to Conyngham, who bowed his head in silence, with the queer smile still hovering on his lips.  Estella saw it and drew a sharp breath.  In the course of her short life, which had almost been spent in the midst of warfare, she had seen men in danger more than once, and perhaps recognised that smile.

‘I particularly beg your attention,’ explained Sir John to Conyngham, ‘because I understand from General Vincente that you are in reality attached to the staff of General Espartero, and it is to him that I look for help.’

Sir John paused again.  He had established another point.  One almost expected to see him raise his hand to his shoulder to throw back the silken gown.

‘Some months ago,’ he went on, ‘these Chartists attacked my house in the North of England, and killed my son.’

There was a short silence, and the General muttered a curt and polite Spanish oath under his breath.  But somehow the speaker had failed to make that point, and he hurried on.

‘It was not, technically speaking, a murder; my boy, who had a fine spirit, attacked the rioters, and a clever counsel might have got a verdict for the scoundrel who actually struck the blow.  I knew this, and awaited events.  I did not even take steps against the man who killed my son—an only son and child.  It was not, from a legal point of view, worth while.’

He laughed his unpleasant laugh again and presently went on.

‘Fortune, however, favoured me.  The trouble grew worse, and the Newport riots at last aroused the Government.  The sentence upon the ringleaders gave me my opportunity.  It was worth while to hunt down the murderer of my son when I could ensure him sixteen or twenty years’ penal servitude.’

‘Quite,’ said the General; ‘quite.’  And he smiled.  He seemed to fail to realise that Sir John Pleydell was in deadly earnest, and really harboured the implacable spirit of revenge with which he cynically credited himself.

‘I traced my man to Gibraltar, and thence he appears to have come north,’ continued Sir John Pleydell.  ‘He has probably taken service under Espartero—many of our English outlaws wear the Spanish Queen’s uniform.  He is, of course, bearing an assumed name; but surely it would be possible to trace him?’

‘Oh, yes,’ answered Conyngham, ‘I think you will be able to find him.’

Sir John’s eyes had for a moment a gleam of life in them.

‘Ah!’ he said, ‘I am glad to hear you say that.  For that is my object in coming to this country; and although I have during the course of my life had many objects of ambition or desire, none of them has so entirely absorbed my attention as this one.  Half a dozen men have gone to penal servitude in order that I might succeed in my purpose.’

There was a cold deliberation in this statement which was more cruel than cynicism, for it was sincere.  Conyngham looked at Estella.  Her face had lost all colour, her eyes were burning—not with the dull light of fear, for the blood that ran in her veins had no taint of that in it—but with anger.  She knew who it was that Sir John Pleydell sought.  She looked at Conyngham, and his smile of cool intrepidity made her heart leap within her breast.  This lover of hers was at all events a brave man—and that which through all the ages reaches the human heart most surely is courage.  The coward has no friends.

Sir John Pleydell had paused, and was seeking something in his pocket.  General Vincente preserved his attitude of slightly bored attention.

‘I have here,’ went on the baronet, ‘a list of the English officers serving in the army of General Espartero at the time of my quitting England.  Perhaps you will, at your leisure, be kind enough to cast your eye over it, and make a note of such men as are personally unknown to you, and may therefore be bearing assumed names.’

Conyngham took the paper, and, holding it in his hand, spoke without moving from the mantelpiece against which he leant.

‘You have not yet made quite clear your object in coming to Spain,’ he said.  ‘There exists between Spain and England no extradition treaty; and even if such were to come in force I believe that persons guilty of political offences would be exempt from its action.  You propose to arraign this man for high treason—a political offence according to the law of many countries.’

‘You speak like a lawyer,’ said Sir John, with a laugh.

‘You have just informed us,’ retorted Conyngham, ‘that all the English in the Spanish service are miscreants.  None know the law so intimately as those who have broken it.’

‘Ah!’ laughed Sir John again, with a face of stone.  ‘There are exceptions to all rules—and you, young sir, are an exception to that which I laid down as regards our countrymen in Spain, unless my experience of faces and knowledge of men play me very false.  But your contention is a just one.  I am not in a position to seek the aid of the Spanish authorities in this matter.  I am fully aware of the fact.  You surely did not expect me to come to Spain with such a weak case as that?’

‘No,’ answered Conyngham slowly, ‘I did not.’

Sir John Pleydell raised his eyes and looked at his fellow countryman with a dawning interest.  The General also looked up, from one face to the other.  The atmosphere of the room seemed to have undergone a sudden change, and to be dominated by the personality of these two Englishmen.  The one will, strong on the surface, accustomed to assert itself and dominate, seemed suddenly to have found itself faced by another as strong and yet hidden behind an easy smile and indolent manner.

‘You are quite right,’ he went on in his cold voice.  ‘I have a better case than that, and one eminently suited to a country such as Spain, where a long war has reduced law and order to a somewhat low ebb.  I at first thought of coming here to await my chance of shooting this man—his name, by the way, is Frederick Conyngham; but circumstances placed a better vengeance within my grasp—one that will last longer.’

He paused for a moment to reflect upon this long-drawn-out expiation.

‘I propose to get my man home to England, and let him there stand his trial.  The idea is not my own; it has, in fact, been carried out successfully before now.  Once in England I shall make it my business to see that he gets twenty years’ penal servitude.’

‘And how do you propose to get him to England?’ asked Conyngham.

‘Oh! that is simple enough.  Only a matter of paying a couple of such scoundrels as I understand abound in Spain at this moment—a little bribing of officials, a heavy fee to some English ship-captain.  I propose, in short, to kidnap Frederick Conyngham.  But I do not ask you to help me in that.  I only ask you to put me on his track—to help me to find him, in fact.  Will you do it?’

‘Certainly,’ said Conyngham, coming forward with a card in his hand.  ‘You could not have come to a better man.’

Sir John Pleydell read the card, and had himself in such control that his face hardly changed.  His teeth closed over his lower lip for a second; then he rose.  The perspiration stood out on his face—the grey of his eyes seemed to have faded to the colour of ashes.  He looked hard at Conyngham, and then, taking up his hat, went to the door with curious, uneven steps.  On the threshold he turned.

‘Your insolence,’ he said breathlessly, ‘is only exceeded by your—daring.’

As the door closed behind him there came, from that part of the room where General Vincente sat, a muffled click of steel, as if a sword half out of its scabbard had been sent softly home again.

‘Some keepeth silence knowing his time.’

‘Who travels slowly may arrive too late,’ said the Padre Concha, with a pessimistic shake of the head, as the carrier’s cart in which he had come from Toledo drew up in the Plazuela de la Cebada at Madrid.  The careful penury of many years had not, indeed, enabled the old priest to travel by the quick diligences, which had often passed him on the road with a cloud of dust and the rattle of six horses.  The great journey had been accomplished in the humbler vehicles plying from town to town, that ran as often as not by night in order to save the horses.

The priest, like his fellow-travellers, was white with dust.  Dust covered his cloak so that its original hue of rusty black was quite lost.  Dust coated his face and nestled in the deep wrinkles of it.  His eyebrows were lost to sight, and his lashes were like those of a miller.

As he stood in the street the dust arose in whirling columns and enveloped all who were abroad; for a gale was howling across the tableland, which the Moors of old had named ‘Majerit’—a draught of wind.  The conductor, who, like a good and jovial conductor, had never refused an offer of refreshment on the road, was now muddled with drink and the heat of the sun.  He was, in fact, engaged in a warm controversy with a passenger.  So the Padre found his own humble portmanteau, a thing of cardboard and canvas, and trudged up the Calle de Toledo, bearing the bag in one hand and his cloak in the other—a lean figure in the sunlight.

Father Concha had been in Madrid before, though he rarely boasted of it, or indeed of any of his travels.

‘The wise man does not hang his knowledge on a hook,’ he was in the habit of saying.

That this knowledge was of that useful description which is usually designated as knowing one’s way about, soon became apparent; for the dusty traveller passed with unerring steps through the narrower streets that lie between the Calle de Toledo and the street of Segovia.  Here dwell the humbler citizens of Madrid, persons engaged in the small commerce of the market-place, for in the Plazuela de la Cebada a hundred yards away is held the corn market, which, indeed, renders the dust in this quarter particularly trying to the eyes.  Once or twice the priest was forced to stop at the corner of two streets and there do battle with the wind.

‘But it is a hurricane,’ he muttered; ‘a hurricane.’

With one hand he held his hat, with the other clung to his cloak and portmanteau.

‘But it will blow the dust from my poor old capa,’ he added, giving the cloak an additional shake.

He presently found himself in a street which, if narrower than its neighbours, smelt less pestiferous.  The open drain that ran down the middle of it pursued its varied course with a quite respectable speed.  In the middle of the street Father Concha paused and looked up, nodding as if to an old friend at the sight of a dingy piece of palm bound to the ironwork of a balcony on the second floor.

‘The time to wash off the dust,’ he muttered as he climbed the narrow stairs, ‘and then to work.’

An hour later he was afoot again in a quarter of the city which was less known to him—namely, in the Calle Preciados, where he sought a venta more or less suspected by the police.  The wind had risen, and was now blowing with the force of a hurricane.  It came from the north-west with a chill whistle which bespoke its birthplace among the peaks of the Gaudarramas.  The streets were deserted; the oil lamps swung on their chains at the street corners, casting weird shadows that swept over the face of the houses with uncanny irregularity.  It was an evening for evil deeds, except that when Nature is in an ill-humour human nature is mostly cowed, and those who have bad consciences cannot rid their minds of thoughts of the hereafter.

The priest found the house he sought, despite the darkness of the street and the absence of any from whom to elicit information.  The venta was on the ground-floor, and above it towered storey after storey, built with the quaint fantasy of the middle ages, and surmounted by a deep, overhanging gabled roof.  The house seemed to have two staircases of stone and two doors—one on each side of the venta.  There is a Spanish proverb which says that the rat which has only one hole is soon caught.  Perhaps the architect remembered this, and had built his house to suit his tenants.  It was on the fifth floor of this tenement that Father Concha, instructed by Heaven knows what priestly source of information, looked to meet with Sebastian, the whilom bodyservant of the late Colonel Monreal of Xeres.

It was known among a certain section of the Royalists that this man had papers and perchance some information of value to dispose of, and more than one respectable, black-clad elbow had brushed the greasy walls of this staircase.  Sebastian, it was said, passed his time in drinking and smoking.  The boasted gaieties of Madrid had, it would appear, diminished to this sordid level of dissipation.

The man was, indeed, thus occupied when the old priest opened the door of his room.

‘Yes,’ he answered in a thick voice, ‘I am Sebastian of Xeres, and no other; the man who knows more of the Carlist plots than any other in Madrid.’

‘Can you read?’

‘No.’

‘Then you know nothing,’ said the Padre.  ‘You have, however, a letter in a pink envelope which a friend of mine desires to possess.  It is a letter of no importance, of no political value—a love letter, in fact.’

‘Ah, yes!  Ah, yes!  That may be, reverendo.  But there are others who want it—your love letter.’

‘I offer you, on the part of my friend, a hundred pesetas for this letter.’

The priest’s wrinkled face wore a grim smile.  It was so little—a hundred pesetas, the price of a dinner for two persons at one of the great restaurants on the Puerta del Sol.  But to Father Concha the sum represented five hundred cups of black coffee denied to himself in the evening at the café—five hundred packets of cigarettes, so-called of Havana, unsmoked—two new cassocks in the course of twenty years—a hundred little gastronomic delights sternly resisted season after season.

‘Not enough, your hundred pesetas, reverendo, not enough,’ laughed the man.  And Concha, who could drive as keen a bargain as any market-woman of Ronda, knew by the manner of saying it that Sebastian only spoke the truth when he said that he had other offers.

‘See, reverendo,’ the man went on, leaning across the table and banging a dirty fist upon it, ‘come to-night at ten o’clock.  There are others coming at the same hour to buy my letter in the pink envelope.  We will have an auction, a little auction, and the letter goes to the highest bidder.  But what does your reverence want with a love letter, eh?’

‘I will come,’ said the Padre, and, turning, he went home to count his money once more.

There are many living still who remember the great gale of wind which was now raging, and through which Father Concha struggled back to the Calle Preciados as the city clocks struck ten.  Old men and women still tell how the theatres were deserted that night and the great cafés wrapt in darkness.  For none dare venture abroad amid such whirl and confusion.  Concha, however, with that lean strength that comes from a life of abstemiousness and low-living, crept along in the shadow of the houses and reached his destination unhurt.  The tall house in the alley leading from the Calle Preciados to the Plazuela Santa Maria was dark, as indeed were most of the streets of Madrid this night.  A small moon struggled, however, through the riven clouds at times, and cast streaks of light down the narrow streets.  Concha caught sight of the form of a man in the alley before him.  The priest carried no weapon, but he did not pause.  At this moment a gleam of light aided him.

‘Señor Conyngham!’ he said.  ‘What brings you here?’

And the Englishman turned sharply on his heel.

‘Is that you—Father Concha, of Ronda?’ he asked.

‘No other, my son.’

Standing in the doorway Conyngham held out his hand with that air of good-fellowship which he had not yet lost amid the more formal Spaniards.

‘Hardly the night for respectable elderly gentlemen of your cloth to be in the streets,’ he said; whereat Concha, who had a keen appreciation of such small pleasantries, laughed grimly.

‘And I have not even the excuse of my cloth.  I am abroad on worldly business, and not even my own.  I will be honest with you, Señor Conyngham.  I am here to buy that malediction of a letter in a pink envelope.  You remember—in the garden at Ronda, eh?’

‘Yes, I remember; and why do you want that letter?’

‘For the sake of Julia Barenna.’

‘Ah!  I want it for the sake of Estella Vincente.’

Concha laughed shortly.

‘Yes,’ he said.  ‘It is only up to the age of twenty-five that men imagine themselves to be the rulers of the world.  But we need not bid against each other, my son.  Perhaps a sight of the letter before I destroy it would satisfy the señorita.’

‘No, we need not bid against each other,’ began Conyngham; but the priest dragged him back into the doorway with a quick whisper of ‘Silence!’

Someone was coming down the other stairway of the tall house, with slow and cautious steps.  Conyngham and his companion drew back to the foot of the stairs and waited.  It became evident that he who descended the steps did so without a light.  At the door he seemed to stop, probably making sure that the narrow alley was deserted.  A moment later he hurried past the door where the two men stood.  The moon was almost clear, and by its light both the watchers recognised Larralde in a flash of thought.  The next instant Esteban Larralde was running for his life with Frederick Conyngham on his heels.

The lamp at the corner of the Calle Preciados had been shattered against the wall by a gust of wind, and both men clattered through a slough of broken glass.  Down the whole length of the Preciados but one lamp was left alight, and the narrow street was littered with tiles and fallen bricks, for many chimneys had been blown down, and more than one shutter lay in the roadway, torn from its hinges by the hurricane.  It was at the risk of life that any ventured abroad at this hour and amid the whirl of falling masonry.  Larralde and Conyngham had the Calle Preciados to themselves—and Larralde cursed his spurs, which rang out at each footfall, and betrayed his whereabouts.

A dozen times the Spaniard fell, but before his pursuer could reach him, the same obstacle threw Conyngham to the ground.  A dozen times some falling object crashed to earth on the Spaniard’s heels, and the Englishman leapt aside to escape the rebound.  Larralde was fleet of foot despite his meagre limbs, and leapt over such obstacles as he could perceive, with the agility of a monkey.  He darted into the lighted doorway—the entrance to the palatial mansion of an upstart politician.  The large doors were thrown open, and the hall-porter stood in full livery awaiting the master’s carriage.  Larralde was already in the patio, and Conyngham ran through the marble-paved entrance hall, before the porter realised what was taking place.  There was no second exit as the fugitive had hoped—so it was round the patio and out again into the dark street, leaving the hall-porter dumfoundered.

Larralde turned sharply to the right as soon as he gained the Calle Preciados.  It was a mere alley running the whole way round a church—and here again was solitude, but not silence, for the wind roared among the chimneys overhead as it roars through a ship’s rigging at sea.  The Calle Preciados again! and a momentary confusion among the tables of a café that stood upon the pavement, amid upturned chairs and a fallen, flapping awning.  The pace was less killing now, but Larralde still held his own—one hand clutched over the precious letter regained at last—and Conyngham was conscious of a sharp pain where the Spaniard’s knife had touched his lung.

Larralde ran mechanically with open mouth and staring eyes.  He never doubted that death was at his heels, should he fail to distance the pursuer.  For he had recognised Conyngham in the patio of the great house, and as he ran the vague wonder filled his mind whether the Englishman carried a knife.  What manner of death would it be if that long arm reached him?  Esteban Larralde was afraid.  His own life—Julia’s life—the lives of a whole Carlist section were at stake.  The history of Spain, perhaps of Europe, depended on the swiftness of his foot.

The little crescent moon was shining clearly now between the long-drawn rifts of the rushing clouds.  Larralde turned to the right again, up a narrow street which seemed to promise a friendly darkness.  The ascent was steep, and the Spaniard gasped for breath as he ran—his legs were becoming numb.  He had never been in this street before, and knew not whither it led.  But it was at all events dark and deserted.  Suddenly he fell upon a heap of bricks and rubbish, a whole stack of chimneys.  He could smell the soot.  Conyngham was upon him, touched him, but failed to get a grip.  Larralde was afoot in an instant, and fell heavily down the far side of the barricade.  He gained a few yards again, and, before Conyngham’s eyes, was suddenly swallowed up in a black mass of falling masonry.  It was more than a chimney this time; nothing less than a whole house carried bodily to the ground by the fall of the steeple of the church of Santa Maria del Monte.  Conyngham stopped dead, and threw his arms over his head.  The crash was terrific, deafening—and for a few moments the Englishman was stunned.  He opened his eyes and closed them again, for the dust and powdered mortar whirled round him like smoke.  Almost blinded, he crept back by the way he had come, and the street was already full of people.  In the Calle Preciados he sat down on a door-step, and there waited until he had gained mastery over his limbs, which shook still.  Presently he made his way back to the house where he had left Concha.

The man Sebastian had, a week earlier, seen and recognised Conyngham as the bearer of the letter addressed to Colonel Monreal, and left at that officer’s lodging in Xeres at the moment of his death in the streets.  Sebastian approached Conyngham, and informed him that he had in his possession sundry papers belonging to the late Colonel Monreal, which might be of value to a Royalist.  This was, therefore, not the first time that Conyngham had climbed the narrow stairs of the tall house with two doors.

He found Concha busying himself by the bedside, where Sebastian lay in the unconsciousness of deep drink.

‘He has probably been drugged,’ said the priest.  ‘Or, he may be dying.  What is more important to us is, that the letter is not here.  I have searched.  Larralde escaped you?’

‘Yes; and of course has the letter.’

‘Of course, amigo.’

The priest looked at the prostrate man with a face of profound contempt, and, shrugging his shoulders, went towards the door.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘I must return to Toledo and Julia.  It is thither that this Larralde always returns, and she, poor woman, believes in him.  Ah, my friend’—he paused and shook his long finger at Conyngham.  ‘When a woman believes in a man she makes him or mars him; there is no medium.’

‘Meddle not with many matters; for if thou meddle much thou shalt not be innocent.’

The Café of the Ambassadeurs in the Calle de la Montera was at this time the fashionable resort of visitors to the city of Madrid.  Its tone was neither political nor urban, but savoured rather of the cosmopolitan.  The waiters at the first-class hotels recommended the Café of the Ambassadeurs, and stepped round to the manager’s office at the time of the New Year to mention the fact.

Sir John Pleydell had been rather nonplussed by his encounter with Conyngham, and, being a man of the world as well as a lawyer, sat down, as it were, to think.  He had come to Spain in the first heat of a great revenge, and such men as he take, like the greater volcanoes, a long time to cool down.  He had been prepossessed in the favour of the man who subsequently owned to being Frederick Conyngham.  And the very manner in which this admission was made redounded in some degree to the honour of the young Englishman.  Here, at least, was one who had no fear, and fearlessness appeals to the heart of every Briton from the peer to the navvy.

Sir John took a certain cold interest in his surroundings, and in due course was recommended to spend an evening at the Café des Ambassadeurs, as it styled itself, for the habit of preferring French to Spanish designations for places of refreshment had come in since the great revolution.  Sir John went, therefore, to the café, and with characteristic scorn of elemental disturbance chose to resort thither on the evening of the great gale.  The few other occupants of the gorgeous room eyed his half-bottle of claret with a grave and decorous wonder, but made no attempt to converse with this chill-looking Englishman.  At length, about ten o’clock or a few minutes later, entered one who bowed to Sir John with an air full of affable promise.  This was Larralde, who called a waiter and bade him fetch a coat-brush.

‘Would you believe it, sir?’ he said, addressing Sir John in broken English, ‘but I have just escaped a terrible death.’

He shrugged his shoulders, spread out his hands, and laughed good-humouredly, after the manner of one who has no foes.

‘The fall of a chimney—so—within a metre of my shoulder.’  He threw back his cloak with a graceful swing of the arm and handed it to the waiter.  Then he drew forward a chair to the table occupied by Sir John, who sipped his claret and bowed coldly.

‘You must not think that Madrid is always like this,’ said Larralde.  ‘But perhaps you know the city—’

‘No—this is my first visit.’

Larralde turned aside to give his order to the waiter.  His movements were always picturesque, and in the presence of Englishmen he had a habit of accentuating those characteristics of speech and manner which are held by our countrymen to be native to the Peninsula.  There is nothing so disarming as conventionality—and nothing less suspicious.  Larralde seemed ever to be a typical Spaniard—indolently polite, gravely indifferent—a cigarette-smoking nonentity.

They talked of topics of the day, and chiefly of that great event, the hurricane, which was still raging.  Larralde, whose habit it was to turn his neighbour to account—a seed of greatness this!—had almost concluded that the Englishman was useless when the conversation turned, as it was almost bound to turn between these two, upon Conyngham.

‘There are but few of your countrymen in Madrid at the moment,’ Larralde had said.

‘I know but one,’ was the guarded reply.

‘And I also,’ said Larralde, flicking the ash from his cigarette.  ‘A young fellow who has made himself somewhat notorious in the Royalist cause—a cause in which I admit I have no sympathy.  His name is Conyngham.’

Then a silence fell upon the two men, and over raised glasses they glanced surreptitiously at each other.

‘I know him,’ said Sir John at length, and the tone of his voice made Larralde glance up with a sudden gleam in his eyes.  There thus sprang into existence between them the closest of all bonds—a common foe.

‘The man has done me more than one ill-turn,’ said Larralde after a pause, and he drummed on the table with his cigarette-stained fingers.

Sir John, looking at him, coldly gauged the Spaniard with the deadly skill of his calling.  He noted that Larralde was poor and ambitious—qualities that often raise the devil in a human heart when fate brings them there together.  He was not deceived by the picturesque manner of Julia’s lover, but knew exactly how much was assumed of that air of simple vanity to which Larralde usually treated strangers.  He probably gauged at one glance the depth of the man’s power for good or ill, his sincerity, his possible usefulness.  In the hands of Sir John Pleydell, Larralde was the merest tool.

They sat until long after midnight, and before they parted Sir John Pleydell handed to his companion a roll of notes, which he counted carefully and Larralde accepted with a grand air of condescension and indifference.

‘You know my address,’ said Sir John, with a slight suggestion of masterfulness which had not been noticeable before the money changed hands.  ‘I shall remain at the same hotel.’

Larralde nodded his head.

‘I shall remember it,’ he said.  ‘And now I go to take a few hours’ rest.  I have had a hard day, and am as tired as a shepherd’s dog.’

And indeed the day had been busy enough.  Señor Larralde hummed an air between his teeth as he struggled against the fierce wind.

Before dawn the gale subsided, and daylight broke with a clear, calm freshness over the city, where sleep had been almost unknown during the night.  The sun had not yet risen when Larralde took the road on his poor, thin black horse.  He rode through the streets, still littered with the débris of fallen chimneys, slates, and shutters, with his head up and his mind so full of the great schemes which gave him no rest, that he never saw Concepçion Vara going to market with a basket on his arm and a cigarette, unlighted, between his lips.  Concepçion turned and watched the horseman, shrugged his shoulders, and quietly followed until the streets were left behind and there could no longer be any doubt that Larralde was bound for Toledo.

Thither, indeed, he journeyed throughout the day with a leisureliness begotten of the desire to enter the ancient city after nightfall only.  Toledo was at this time the smouldering hotbed of those political intrigues which some years later burst into flame, and resulted finally in the expulsion of the Bourbons from the throne of Spain.  Larralde was sufficiently dangerous to require watching, and, like many of his kind, considered himself of a greater importance than his enemies were pleased to attach to him.  The city of Toledo is, as many know, almost surrounded by the rapid Tagus, and entrance to its narrow confine is only to be gained by two gates.  To pass either of these barriers in open day would be to court a publicity singularly undesirable at this time, for Esteban Larralde was slipping down the social slope, which gradual progress is the hardest to arrest.  If one is mounting there are plenty to help him—those from above seeking to make unto themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; those from below hoping to tread in the footsteps he may leave.  Each step, however, of the upward progress has to be gained at the expense of another.  But on the descent there are none to stay and many to push behind, while those in front make room readily enough.  Larralde had for the first time accepted a direct monetary reward for his services.  That this had been offered and accepted in a polite Spanish manner as an advance of expenses to be incurred was, of course, only natural under the circumstances, but the fact remained that Esteban Larralde was no longer a picturesque conspirator, serving a failing cause with that devotion which can only be repaid later by high honours, and a post carrying with it emoluments of proportionate value.  He had, in fact, been paid in advance; which is the surest sign of distrust upon one side or the other.

The Barennas had been established at their house in Toledo some weeks, and, for Julia, life had been dull enough.  She had hastened northward, knowing well that her lover’s intrigues must necessarily bring him to the neighbourhood of the capital—perhaps to Toledo itself.  Larralde had, however, hitherto failed to come near her, and the news of the day reported an increasing depression in the ranks of the Carlists.  Indeed, that cause seemed now at such a low ebb that the franker mercenaries were daily drifting away to more promising scenes of warfare, while some cynically accepted commissions in the army of Espartero.

‘I always said that Don Carlos would fail if he employed such men—as—well, as he does,’ Madame Barenna took more than one opportunity of observing at this time, and her emphatic fan rapped the personal application home.

She had just made this remark for perhaps the sixth time one evening when the door of the patio where she and Julia sat was thrown open, and Larralde—the person indirectly referred to—came towards the ladies.  He was not afraid of Madame Barenna, and his tired face lightened visibly at the sight of Julia.  Concha was right.  According to his lights Larralde loved Julia.  She, who knew every expression, noted the look in his face, and her heart leapt within her breast.  She had long secretly rejoiced over the failure of the Carlist cause.  Such, messieurs, is the ambition of a woman for the man she really loves.

Señora Barenna rose and held out her hand with a beaming smile.  She was rather bored that evening, and it was pleasant to imagine herself in the midst of great political intrigues.

‘We were wondering if you would come,’ she said.

‘I am here—there—everywhere—but I always come back to the Casa Barenna,’ he said gallantly.

‘You look tired,’ said Julia quietly.  ‘Where are you from?’

‘At the moment I am from Madrid.  The city has been wrecked by a tornado—I myself almost perished.’

He paused, shrugged his shoulders.

‘What will you?’ he added carelessly.  ‘What is life—a single life—in Spain to-day?’

Julia winced.  It is marvellous how an intelligent woman may blind herself into absolute belief in one man.  Señora Barenna shuddered.

‘Blessed Heaven!’ she whispered.  ‘Why does not someone do something?’

‘One does one’s best,’ answered Larralde, with his hand at his moustache.

‘But yes!’ said Madame eagerly.  She had a shrewd common sense, as many apparently foolish women have, and probably put the right value on Señor Larralde’s endeavours.  Father Concha and the General were, however, far away, and all women are time-servers.