The hour of the siesta was scarce over, and as Conyngham rode through the cleanly streets of the ancient town more than one idler roused himself from the shadow of a doorway to see him pass. There are few older towns in Andalusia than Ronda, and scarce anywhere the habits of the Moors are so closely followed. The streets are clean, the houses whitewashed within and without. The trappings of the mules and much of the costume of the people are Oriental in texture and brilliancy.

Conyngham asked a passer-by to indicate the way to the Cordova road, and the polite Spaniard turned and walked by his stirrup until a mistake was no longer possible.

'It is not the most beautiful approach to Ronda,' said this garrulous person, 'but well enough in the summer, when the flowers are in bloom and the vineyards green. The road is straight and dusty until one arrives at the possession of the Senora Barenna—a narrow road to the right leading up into the mountain. One can perceive the house—oh, yes—upon the hillside, once beautiful, but now old and decayed. Mistake is now impossible. It is a straight way. I wish you a good journey.'

Conyngham rode on, vaguely turning over in his mind a half-matured plan of effecting a seemingly accidental entry to the house of Senora Barenna, in the hope of meeting that lady's daughter in the garden or grounds. Once outside the walls of the town he found the country open and bare, consisting of brown hills, of which the lower slopes were dotted with evergreen oaks. The road soon traversed a village which seemed to be half deserted, for men and women alike were working in the fields. On the balcony of the best house a branch of palm bound against the ironwork balustrade indicated the dwelling of the priest, and the form of that village despot was dimly discernible in the darkened room behind. Beyond the village Conyngham turned his horse's head towards the mountain, his mind preoccupied with a Macchiavellian scheme of losing his way in this neighbourhood. Through the evergreen oak and olive groves he could perceive the roof of an old grey house which had once been a mere hacienda or semi-fortified farm.

Conyngham did not propose to go direct to Senora Barenna's house, but described a semicircle, mounting from terrace to terrace on his sure-footed horse.

When at length he came in sight of the high gateway where the ten- foot oaken gates still swung, he perceived someone approaching the exit. On closer inspection he saw that this was a priest, and on nearing him recognised the Padre Concha, whose acquaintance he had made at the Hotel of the Marina at Algeciras.

The recognition was mutual, for the priest raised his shabby old hat with a tender care for the insecurity of its brim.

'A lucky meeting, Senor Englishman,' he said; 'who would have expected to see you here?'

'I have lost my way.'

'Ah!' And the grim face relaxed into a smile. 'Lost your way?'

'Yes.'

'Then it is lucky that I have met you. It is so easy to lose one's way—when one is young.'

He raised his hand to the horse's bridle.

'You are most certainly going in the wrong direction,' he said; 'I will lead you right.'

It was said and done so quietly that Conyngham had found no word to say before his horse was moving in the opposite direction.

'This is surely one of General Vincente's horses,' said the priest; 'we have few such barbs in Ronda. He always rides a good horse, that Miguel Vincente.'

'Yes, it is one of his horses. Then you know the General?'

'We were boys together,' answered the Padre; 'and there were some who said that he should have been the priest and I the soldier.'

The old man gave a little laugh.

'He has prospered, however, if I have not. A great man, my dear Miguel, and they say that his pay is duly handed to him. My own—my princely twenty pounds a year—is overdue. I am happy enough, however, and have a good house. You noticed it, perhaps, as you passed through the village, a branch of palm against the rail of the balcony—my sign, you understand. The innkeeper next door displays a branch of pine, which, I notice, is more attractive. Every man his day. One does not catch rabbits with a dead ferret. That is the church—will you see it? No? Well, some other day. I will guide you through the village. The walk will give me appetite, which I sometimes require, for my cook is one whose husband has left her.'



CHAPTER VIII. THE LOVE LETTER.



'I must mix myself with action lest I wither by despair.'

'No one,' Conyngham heard a voice exclaiming as he went into the garden on returning from his fruitless ride, 'no one knows what I have suffered.'

He paused in the dark doorway, not wishing to intrude upon Estella and her visitors; for he perceived the forms of three ladies seated within a miniature jungle of bamboo, which grew in feathery luxuriance around a fountain. It was not difficult to identify the voice as that of the eldest lady, who was stout, and spoke in deep, almost manly tones. So far as he was able to judge, the suffering mentioned had left but small record on its victim's outward appearance.

'Old lady seems to have stood it well,' commented the Englishman in his mind.

'Never again, my dear Estella, do I leave Ronda, except indeed for Toledo, where, of course, we shall go in the summer if this terrible Don Carlos is really driven from the country. Ah! but what suffering! My mind is never at ease. I expect to wake up at night and hear that Julia is being murdered in her bed. For me it does not matter; my life is not so gay that it will cost me much to part from it. No one would molest an old woman, you think? Well, that may be so; but I know all the anxiety, for I was once beautiful—ah! more beautiful than you or Julia; and my hands and feet—have you ever noticed my foot, Estella?—even now—!'

And a sonorous sigh completed the sentence. Conyngham stepped out of the doorway, the clank of his spurred heel on the marble pavement causing the sigh to break off in a little scream. He had caught the name of Julia, and hastily concluded that these ladies must be no other than Madame Barenna and her daughter. In the little bamboo grove he found the elder lady lying back in her chair, which creaked ominously, and asking in a faint voice whether he were Don Carlos.

'No,' answered Estella, with a momentary twinkle in her grave, dark eyes; 'this is Mr. Conyngham—my aunt, Senora Barenna, and my cousin Julia.'

The ladies bowed.

'You must excuse me,' said Madame Barenna volubly, 'but your approach was so sudden. I am a great sufferer—my nerves, you know. But young people do not understand.'

And she sighed heavily, with a side glance at her daughter, who did not even appear to be trying to do so. Julia Barenna was darker than her cousin, quicker in manner, with an air of worldly capability which Estella lacked. Her eyes were quick and restless, her face less beautiful, but expressive of a great intelligence, which, if brought to bear upon men in the form of coquetry, was likely to be infinitely dangerous.

'It is always best to approach my mother with caution,' she said with a restless movement of her hands. This was not a woman at her ease in the world or at peace with it. She laughed as she spoke, but her eyes were grave, even while her lips smiled, and watched the Englishman's face with an air almost of anxiety. There are some faces that seem to be watching and waiting. Julia Barenna's had such a look.

'Conyngham,' said Madame Barenna reflectively. 'Surely I have heard that name before. You are not the Englishman with whom Father Concha is so angry—who sells forbidden books—the Bible, it is said?'

'No, senora,' answered Conyngham with perfect gravity; 'I have nothing to sell.'

He laughed suddenly, and looked at the elder lady with that air of good humour which won for him more friends than he ever wanted; for this Irishman had a ray of sunshine in his heart which shone upon his path through life, and made that uneven way easier for his feet. He glanced at Julia, and saw in her eyes the look of expectancy which was, in reality, always there. The thought flashed through his mind that by some means, or perhaps feminine intuition beyond his comprehension, she knew that he possessed the letter addressed to her, and was eagerly awaiting it. This letter seemed to have been gaining in importance the longer he carried it, and this opportunity of giving it to her came at the right moment. He remembered Larralde's words concerning the person to whom the missive was addressed, and the high-flown sentiments of that somewhat theatrical gentleman became in some degree justified. Julia Barenna was a woman who might well awaken a passionate love. Conyngham realised this, as from a distance, while Julia's mother spoke of some trivial matter of the moment to unheeding ears. That distance seemed now to exist between him and all women. It had come suddenly, and one glance of Estella's eyes had called it into existence.

'Yes,' Senora Barenna was saying, 'Father Concha is very angry with the English. What a terrible man! You do not know him, Senor Conyngham?'

'I think I have met him, senora.'

'Ah, but you have never seen him angry. You have never confessed to him! A little, little sin—no larger than the eye of a fly—a little bite of a calf's sweetbread on Friday in mere forgetfulness, and Sancta Maria! what a penance is required! What suffering! It is a purgatory to have such a confessor.'

'Surely madame can have no sins,' said Conyngham pleasantly.

'Not now,' said Senora Barenna with a deep sigh. 'When I was young it was different.'

And the memory of her sinful days almost moved her to tears. She glanced at Conyngham with a tragic air of mutual understanding, as if drawing a veil over that blissful past in the presence of Julia and Estella. 'Ask me another time,' that glance seemed to say.

'Yes,' the lady continued, 'Father Concha is very angry with the English. Firstly, because of these bibles. Blessed Heaven! what does it matter? No one can read them except the priests, and they do not want to do so. Secondly, because the English have helped to overthrow Don Carlos—'

'You will have a penance,' interrupted Miss Julia Barenna quietly, 'from Father Concha for talking politics.'

'But how will he know?' asked Senora Barenna sharply; and the two young ladies laughed.

Senora Barenna looked from one to the other, and shrugged her shoulders. Like many women she was a strange mixture of foolishness and worldly wisdom. She adjusted her mantilla and mutely appealed to Heaven with a glance of her upturned eyes. Conyngham, who was no diplomatist, nor possessed any skill in concealing his thoughts, looked with some interest at Julia Barenna, and Estella watched him. 'Julia is right,' Senora Barenna was saying, though nobody heeded her; 'one must not talk nor even think politics in this country. You are no politician, I trust, Senor Conyngham—Senor Conyngham, I ask you, you are no politician?'

'No, senora,' replied Conyngham hastily; 'no; and if I were, I should never understand Spanish politics.'

'Father Concha says that Spanish politics are the same as those of any other country—each man for himself,' said Julia with a bitter laugh.

'And he is, no doubt, right.'

'Do you really think so?' asked Julia Barenna, with more earnestness than the question would seem to require; 'are there not true patriots who sacrifice all—not only their friends, but themselves— to the cause of their country?'

'Without the hope of reward?'

'Yes.'

'There may be, senorita—a few,' answered Conyngham with a laugh, 'but not in my country. They must all be in Spain.'

She smiled and shook her head in doubt. But it was a worn smile.

The Englishman turned away and looked through the trees. He was wondering how he could get speech with Julia alone for a moment.

'You are admiring the garden,' said that young lady; and this time he knew that there had in reality been that meaning in her eyes which he had imagined to be there.

'Yes, senorita, I think it must be the most beautiful garden in the world.'

He turned as he spoke, and looked at Estella, who met his glance quietly. Her repose of manner struck him afresh. Here was a woman having that air of decision which exacts respect alike from men and women. Seen thus, with the more vivacious Julia at her side, Estella gained suddenly in moral strength and depth—suggesting a steady fire in contrast with a flickering will-o'-the-wisp blown hither and thither on every zephyr. Yet Julia Barenna would pass anywhere as a woman of will and purpose.

Julia had risen, and was moving towards the exit of the little grove in which they found themselves. Conyngham had never been seated.

'Are the violets in bloom, Estella? I must see them,' said the visitor. 'We have none at home, where all is dry and parched.'

'So bad for the nerves—what suffering!—such a dry soil that one cannot sleep at night,' murmured Madame Barenna, preparing to rise from her seat.

Julia and Conyngham naturally led the way. The paths winding in and out among the palms and pepper trees were of a width that allowed two to walk abreast.

'Senorita, I have a letter for you.'

'Not yet—wait!'

Senora Barenna was chattering in her deep husky tones immediately behind them. Julia turned and looked up at the windows of the house, which commanded a full view of the garden. The dwelling rooms were as usual upon the first floor, and the windows were lightly barred with curiously wrought iron. Each window was curtained within with lace and muslin.

The paths wound in and out among the trees, but none of these were large enough to afford a secure screen from the eye of any watcher within the house. There was neither olive nor ilex in the garden to afford shelter with their heavy leaves. Julia and Conyngham walked on, out-distancing the elder lady and Estella. From these many a turn in the path hid them from time to time, but Julia was distrustful of the windows and hesitated, in an agony of nervousness. Conyngham saw that her face was quite colourless, and her teeth closed convulsively over her lower lip. He continued to talk of indifferent topics, but the answers she made were incoherent and broken. The course of true love did not seem to run smooth here.

'Shall I give you the letter? No one can see us, senorita. Besides, I was informed that it was of no importance except to yourself. You have doubtless had many such before, unless the Spanish gentlemen are blind.'

He laughed and felt in his pocket.

'Yes!' she whispered. 'Quickly—now.'

He gave her the letter in its romantic pink, scented envelope with a half-suppressed smile at her eagerness. Would anybody—would Estella—ever be thus agitated at the receipt of a letter from himself? They were at the lower end of the inclosure, which was divided almost in two by a broader pathway leading from the house to the centre of the garden, where a fountain of Moorish marble formed a sort of carrefour, from which the narrower pathways diverged in all directions.

Descending the steps into the garden from the house were two men, one talking violently, the other seeking to calm him.

'My uncle and the Alcalde—they have seen us from the windows,' said Julia quickly. All her nervousness of manner seemed to have vanished, leaving her concentrated and alert. Some men are thus in warfare—nervous until the rifle opens fire, and then cool and ready.

'Quick!' whispered Julia. 'Let us turn back.'

She wheeled round, and Conyngham did the same.

'Julia!' they heard General Vincente call in his gentle voice.

Julia, who was tearing the pink envelope, took no heed. Within the first covering a second envelope appeared, bearing a longer address. 'Give that to the man whose address it bears, and save me from ruin,' said the girl, thrusting the letter into Conyngham's hand. She kept the pink envelope.

When, a minute later, they came face to face with General Vincente and his companion, a white-faced, fluttering man of sixty years, Julia Barenna received them with a smile. There are some men who, conscious of their own quickness of resource, are careless of danger, and run into it from mere heedlessness, trusting to good fortune to aid them should peril arise. Frederick Conyngham was one of these. He now suspected that this was no love letter which the man called Larralde had given him in Algeciras.

'Julia,' said the General, 'the Alcalde desires to speak with you.'

Julia bowed with that touch of hauteur which in Spain the nobles ever observe in their manner towards the municipal authorities.

'Mr. Conyngham,' continued the General, 'this is our brave Mayor, in whose hands rests the well-being of the people of Ronda.'

'Honoured to meet you,' said Conyngham, holding out his hand with that frankness of manner which he accorded to great and small alike. The Alcalde, a man of immense importance in his own estimation, hesitated before accepting it.

'General,' he said, turning and bowing very low to Senora Barenna and Estella, who now joined them, 'General, I leave you to explain to your niece the painful duties of my office.'

The General smiled and raised a deprecating shoulder.

'Well, my dear,' he said kindly to Julia, 'it appears that our good Alcalde has news of a letter which is at present passing from hand to hand in Andalusia. It is a letter of some importance. Our good Mayor, who was at the window a minute ago, saw Mr. Conyngham hand you a letter. Between persons who only met in this garden five minutes ago such a transaction had a strange air. Our good friend, who is all zeal for Spain and the people of Ronda, merely asks you if his eyes deceived him. It is a matter at which we shall all laugh presently over a lemonade—is it not so? A trifle, eh?' He passed his handkerchief across his moustache, and looked affectionately at his niece.

'A letter!' exclaimed Julia. 'Surely the Alcalde presumes. He takes too much upon himself.' The official stepped forward.

'Senorita,' he said, 'I must be allowed to take that risk. Did this gentleman give you a letter three minutes ago?'

Julia laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

'Yes.'

'May I ask the nature of the letter?'

'It was a love letter.'

Conyngham bit his lip and looked at Estella.

The Alcalde looked doubtful, with the cunning lips of a cheap country lawyer.

'A love letter from a gentleman you have never seen before?' he said with a forced laugh.

'Pardon me, Senor Alcalde, this gentleman travelled in the same ship with my mother and myself from Bordeaux to Algeciras, and he saved my life.'

She cast a momentary glance at Conyngham; which would have sealed his fate had the fiery Mr. Larralde been there to see it. The Prefect paused, somewhat taken aback. There was a momentary silence, and every moment gave Julia and Conyngham time to think. Then the Alcalde turned to Conyngham.

'It will give me the greatest pleasure,' he said, 'to learn that I have been mistaken. I have only to ask this gentleman's confirmation of what the senorita has said. It is true, senor, that you surreptitiously handed to the Senorita Barenna a letter expressing your love?'

'Since the senorita has done me the honour of confessing it, I must ask you to believe it,' answered Conyngham steadily and coldly.



CHAPTER IX. A WAR OF WIT.



'La discretion est l'art du mensonge.'

The Alcalde blew out his cheeks and looked at General Vincente. Senora Barenna would with small encouragement have thrown herself into Conyngham's arms; but she received none whatever, and instead frowned at Julia. Estella was looking haughtily at her father, and would not meet Conyngham's glance.

'I feel sure,' said General Vincente in his most conciliating manner, 'that my dear Julia will see the necessity of satisfying the good Alcalde by showing him the letter—with, of course, the consent of my friend Conyngham.'

He laughed, and slipped his hand within Conyngham's arm.

'You see, my dear friend,' he said in English, 'these local magnates are a trifle inflated; local magnitude is a little inclined to inflate, eh? Ha! ha! And it is so easy to conciliate them. I always try to do so myself. Peace at any price—that is my motto.'

And he turned aside to arrange his sword, which dragged on the ground.

'Tell her, my dear Conyngham, to let the old gentleman read the letter.'

'But it is nothing to do with me, General.'

'I know that, my friend, as well as you do,' said Vincente with a sudden change of manner, which gave the Englishman an uncomfortable desire to know what he meant. But General Vincente, in pursuit of that peace which had earned him such a terrible reputation in war, turned to Senora Barenna with his most reassuring smile.

'It is nothing, my dear Inez,' he said. 'In these times of trouble the officials are so suspicious, and our dear Alcalde knows too much. He remembers dear Julia's little affair with Esteban Larralde, now long since lived down and forgotten. Larralde is, it appears, a malcontent, and on the wrong side of the wall. You need have no uneasiness. Ah! your nerves—yes, I know! A great sufferer—yes, I remember. Patience, dear Inez, patience!'

And he patted her stout white hand affectionately.

The Alcalde was taking snuff with a stubborn air of disbelief, glancing the while suspiciously at Conyngham, who had eyes for none but Estella.

'Alcalde,' said General Vincente, 'the incident is past, as we say in the diplomatic service; a lemonade now?'

'No, General, the incident is not past, and I will not have a lemonade.'

'Oh!' exclaimed General Vincente in gentle horror.

'Yes, this young lady must give me the letter, or I call in my men.'

'But your men could not touch a lady, my dear Alcalde.'

'You may be the Alcalde of Ronda,' said Conyngham cheerfully, in continuation of the General's argument; 'but if you offer such an insult to Senorita Barenna, I throw you into the fountain, in the deepest part, where it is wettest, just there by the marble dolphin.'

And Conyngham indicated the exact spot with his riding-whip.

'Who is this gentleman?' asked the Alcalde. The question was in the first place addressed to space and the gods—after a moment the speaker turned to General Vincente.

'A prospective aide-de-camp of General Espartero.'

At the mention of the great name the Mayor of Ronda became beautifully less and half bowed to Conyngham.

'I must do my duty,' he said with the stubbornness of a small mind.

'And what do you conceive that to be, my dear Alcalde?' inquired the General.

'To place the Senorita Barenna under arrest unless she will hand to me the letter she has in her possession.' Julia looked at him with a smile. She was a brave woman, playing a dangerous game with consummate courage, and never glanced at Conyngham, who with an effort kept his hand away from the pocket where the letter lay concealed. The manner in which she trusted him unreservedly and entirely was in itself cunning enough, for it appealed to that sense of chivalry which is not yet dead in men.

'Place me under arrest, Senor Alcalde,' she said indifferently, 'and when you have satisfied me that you have a right to inspect a lady's private correspondence I will submit to be searched—but not before.'

She made a little signal to Conyngham not to interfere.

Senora Barenna took this opportunity of asserting herself and her nerves. She sat heavily down on a stone seat and wept. She could hardly have done better, for she was a countess in her own right, and the sight of high-born tears distinctly unnerved the Alcalde.

'Well,' he said, 'the senorita has made her own choice. In these times' (he glanced nervously at the weeping lady) 'one must do one's duty.'

'My dear Julia,' protested the General, 'you who are so sensible—'

Julia shrugged her shoulders and laughed. She not only trusted Conyngham but relied upon his intelligence. It is as a rule safer to confide in the honesty of one's neighbour than in his wit; better still, trust in neither. Conyngham, who was quick enough when the moment required it, knew that she was fostering the belief that the letter at that moment in his pocket was in her possession. He suspected also that he and Julia Barenna were playing with life and death. Further, he recognised her and her voice. This was the woman who had showed discrimination and calmness in face of a great danger on the Garonne. Had this Englishman, owning as he did to a strain of Irish blood, turned his back on her and danger at such a moment he would assuredly have proved himself untrue to the annals of that race which has made a mark upon the world that will never be wiped out. He looked at the Alcalde and smiled, whereupon that official turned and made a signal with his hand to a man who, dressed in a quiet uniform, had appeared in the doorway of the house.

'What the deuce we are all trying to do I don't know,' reflected Conyngham, who indeed was sufficiently at sea to awake the most dormant suspicions.

The Alcalde, now thoroughly aroused, protested his inability to neglect a particle of his duty at this troubled period of Spain's history, and announced his intention of placing Julia Barenna under surveillance until she handed him the letter she had received from Conyngham.

'I am quite prepared,' he added, 'to give this caballero the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he has been in this matter the tool of unscrupulous persons. Seeing that he is a friend of General Vincente's, and has an introduction to his Excellency the Duke of Vittoria, he is without the pale of my jurisdiction.'

The Alcalde made Conyngham a profound bow and proceeded to conduct Julia and her indignant mother to their carriage.

'There goes,' said General Vincente with his most optimistic little chuckle, 'a young woman whose head will always be endangered by her heart.' And he nodded towards Julia's retreating form.

Estella turned and walked away by herself.

'Come,' said the General to Conyngham, 'let us sit down. I have news for you. But what a susceptible heart—my dear young friend— what a susceptible heart! Julia is, I admit, a very pretty girl—la beaute du diable, eh! But on so short an acquaintance—rather rapid, rather rapid!'

As he spoke he was searching among some letters which he had produced from his pocket, and at length found an official envelope that had already been opened.

'I have here,' he said, 'a letter from Madrid. You have only to proceed to the capital, and there I hope a post awaits you. Your duties will at present be of a semi-military character, but later I hope we can show you some fighting. This pestilential Cabrera is not yet quelled, and Morella still holds out. Yes, there will be fighting.'

He closed the letter and looked at Conyngham. 'If that is what you want,' he added.

'Yes, that is what I want.'

The General nodded and rose, pausing to brush a few grains of dust from his dapper riding-breeches.

'Come,' he said, 'I have seen a horse which will suit you at the cavalry quarters in the Calle de Bobadilla. Shall we go and look at him?'

Conyngham expressed his readiness to do as the General proposed.

'When shall I start for Madrid?' he asked.

'Oh, to-morrow morning will be time enough,' was the reply, uttered in an easy-going, indolent tone, 'if you are early astir. You see, it is now nearly five o'clock, and you could scarcely be in saddle before sunset.'

'No,' laughed Conyngham, 'scarcely, considering that I have not yet bought the saddle or the horse.'

The General led the way into the house, and Conyngham thought of the letter in his pocket. He had not yet read the address. Julia relied upon him to deliver it, and her conduct towards the Alcalde had the evident object of gaining time for him to do so. She had unhesitatingly thrust herself into a position of danger to screen him and further her own indomitable purpose. He thought of her— still as from a distance at which Estella had placed him—and knew that she not only had a disquieting beauty, but cleverness and courage, which are qualities that outlast beauty and make a woman powerful for ever.

When he and his companion emerged from the great doorway of the house into the sunlight of the Calle Mayor, a man came forward from the shade of a neighbouring porch. It was Concepcion Vara, leisurely and dignified, twirling a cigarette between his brown fingers. He saluted the General with one finger to the brim of his shabby felt hat as one great man might salute another. He nodded to Conyngham.

'When does his Excellency take the road again?' he said. 'I am ready. The Guardia Civil was mistaken this time—the judge said there was no stain on my name.'

He shrugged his shoulders and waved away the slight with the magnanimity of one who can forgive and forget.

'I take the road to-morrow; but our contract ceased at Ronda. I had no intention of taking you on.'

'You are not satisfied with me?' inquired Concepcion, offering his interlocutor the cigarette he had just made.

'Oh, yes.'

'Buen! We take the road together.'

'Then there is nothing more to be said?' inquired Conyngham with a good-natured laugh.

'Nothing, except the hour at which your Excellency starts.'

'Six o'clock,' put in General Vincente quietly. 'Let me see, your name is Concepcion Vara.'

'Yes, Excellency—of Algeciras.'

'It is well. Then serve this gentleman well, or else—' The General paused, and laughed in his most deprecating manner.

Concepcion seemed to understand, for he took off his hat and turned gravely away. The General and Conyngham walked rapidly through the streets of Ronda, than which there are none cleaner in the whole world, and duly bought a great black horse at a price which seemed moderate enough to the Englishman, though the vendor explained that the long war had made horseflesh rise in value. Conyngham, at no time a keen bargainer, hurried the matter to an end, and scarce examined the saddle. He was anxious to get back to the garden of the great house in the Calle Mayor before the cool of evening came to drive Estella indoors.

'You will doubtless wish to pack your portmanteau,' said the General rather breathlessly, as he hurried along with small steps beside Conyngham.

'Yes,' answered the Englishman ingenuously, 'yes, of course.'

'Then I will not detain you,' said General Vincente. 'I have affairs at headquarters. We meet at dinner, of course.'

He waved a little salutation with his whip and took a side turning.

The sun had not set when Conyngham with a beating heart made his way through the house into the garden. He had never been so serious about anything in his life. Indeed, his life seemed only to have begun in that garden. Estella was there. He saw her black dress and mantilla through the trees, and the gleam of her golden hair made his eyes almost fierce for the moment.

'I am going to-morrow morning,' he said bluntly when he reached her where she sat in the shade of a mimosa.

She raised her eyes for a moment—deep velvet eyes with something in them that made his heart leap within his breast.

'And I love you, Estella,' he added. 'You may be offended—you may despise me—you may distrust me. But nothing can alter me. I love you—now and ever.'

She drew a deep breath and sat motionless.

'How many women does an Englishman love at once?' she asked coldly at length.

'Only one, senorita.'

He stood looking at her for a moment. Then she rose and walked past him into the house.



CHAPTER X. THE CITY OF DISCONTENT.



'En paroles ou en actions, etre discret, c'est s'abstenir.'

'There is,' observed Frederick Conyngham to himself as he climbed into the saddle in the grey dawn of the following morning, 'there is a certain picturesqueness about these proceedings which pleases me.'

Concepcion Vara indeed supplied a portion of this romantic atmosphere, for he was dressed in the height of contrabandista fashion, with a bright-coloured handkerchief folded round his head underneath his black hat, a scarlet waistcloth, a spotless shirt, and a flower in the ribbon of his hat.

He was dignified and leisurely, but so far forgot himself as to sing as he threw his leg across his horse. A dark-eyed maiden had come to the corner of the Calle Vieja, and stood there watching him with mournful eyes. He waved her a salutation as he passed.

'It is the waiting-maid at the venta where I stay in Ronda—what will you?' he explained to Conyngham with a modest air as he cocked his hat farther on one side.

The sun rose as they emerged from the narrow streets into the open country that borders the road to Bobadilla. A pastoral country this, where the land needs little care to make it give more than man requires for his daily food. The evergreen oak studded over the whole plain supplies food for countless pigs and shade where the herdsmen may dream away the sunny days. The rich soil would yield two or even three crops in the year, were the necessary seed and labour forthcoming. Underground, the mineral wealth outvies the richness of the surface, but national indolence leaves it unexplored.

'Before General Vincente one could not explain oneself,' said Concepcion, urging his horse to keep pace with the trot of Conyngham's huge mount.

'Ah!'

'No,' pursued Concepcion. 'And yet it is simple. In Algeciras I have a wife. It is well that a man should travel at times. So,' he paused and bowed towards his companion with a gesture of infinite condescension, 'so—we take the road together.'

'As long as you are pleased, Senor Vara,' said Conyngham, 'I am sure I can but feel honoured. You know I have no money.'

The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders.

'What matter?' he said. 'What matter? We can keep an account—a mere piece of paper—so: "Concepcion Vara, of Algeciras, in account current with F. Conyngham; Englishman. One month's wages at one hundred pesetas." It is simple.'

'Very,' acquiesced Conyngham. 'It is only when pay-day comes that things will get complicated.'

Concepcion laughed.

'You are a caballero after my own heart,' he said. 'We shall enjoy ourselves in Madrid. I see that.'

Conyngham did not answer. He had remembered the letter and Julia Barenna's danger. He rose in his stirrups and looked behind him. Ronda was already hidden by intervening hills, and the bare line of the roadway was unbroken by the form of any other traveller.

'We are not going to Madrid yet,' said Conyngham. 'We are going to Xeres, where I have business. Do you know the road to Xeres?'

'As well that as any other, Excellency.'

'What do you mean?'

'I know no roads north of Ronda. I am of Andalusia, I,' replied Concepcion easily, and he looked round about him with an air of interest which was more to the credit of his intelligence as a traveller than his reliability as a guide.

'But you engaged to guide me to Madrid.'

'Yes, Excellency—by asking the way,' replied Concepcion with a light laugh, and he struck a sulphur match on the neck of his horse to light a fresh cigarette.

Thus with an easy heart Frederick Conyngham set out on his journey, having for companion one as irresponsible as himself. He had determined to go to Xeres, though that town of ill repute lay far to the westward of his road towards the capital. It would have been simple enough to destroy the letter entrusted to him by Julia Barenna, a stranger whom he was likely never to see again—simple enough and infinitely safer as he suspected, for the billet-doux of Mr. Larralde smelt of grimmer things than love. But Julia Barenna wittingly, or in all innocence, appealed to that sense of chivalry which is essentially the quality of lonely men who have never had sisters, and Conyngham was ready to help Julia where he would have refused his assistance to a man, however hard pressed.

'Cannot leave the girl in a hole,' he said to himself, and proceeded to act upon this resolution with a steadiness of purpose for which some may blame him.

It was evening when the two travellers reached Xeres after some weary hours of monotonous progress through the vine-clad plains of this country.

'It is no wonder,' said Concepcion, 'that the men of Xeres are malcontents, when they live in a country as flat as the palm of my hand.'

It happened to be a fete day, which in Spain, as in other countries farther North, is synonymous with mischief. The men of Xeres had taken advantage of this holiday to demonstrate their desire for more. They had marched through the streets with banner and song, arrayed in their best clothes, fostering their worst thoughts. They had consumed marvellous quantities of that small Amontillado which is as it were a thin fire to the blood, heating and degenerating at once. They had talked much nonsense and listened to more. Carlist or Christino—it was all the same to them, so long as they had a change of some sort. In the meantime they had a desire to break something, if only to assert their liberty.

A few minutes before Conyngham and his guide rode into the market- place, which in Xeres is as long as a street, some of the free sons of Spain had thought fit to shout insulting remarks to a passer-by. With a fire too bright for his years this old gentleman, with fierce white moustache and imperial, had turned on them, calling them good- for-nothings and sons of pigs.

Conyngham rode up just in time to see the ruffians rise as one man and rush at the victim of their humour. The old man with his back to the wall repelled his assailants with a sort of fierce joy in his attitude which betokened the soldier.

'Come on, Concepcion!' cried Conyngham, with a dig of the spurs that made his tired horse leap into the air. He charged down upon the gathering crowd, which scattered right and left before the wild onslaught. But he saw the flash of steel, and knew that it was too late. The old man, with an oath and a gasp of pain, sank against the wall with the blood trickling through the fingers clasped against his breast. Conyngham would have reined in, but Concepcion on his heels gave the charger a cut with his heavy whip that made him bound forward and would have unseated a short-stirruped rider.

'Go on,' cried the Spaniard; 'it is no business of ours. The police are behind.'

And Conyngham, remembering the letter in his pocket, rode on without looking back. In the day of which the present narrative treats, the streets of Xeres were but ill paved, and the dust lay on them to the depth of many inches, serving to deaden the sound of footsteps and facilitate the commission of such deeds of violence as were at this time of daily occurrence in Spain. Riding on at random, Conyngham and his companion soon lost their way in the narrow streets, and were able to satisfy themselves that none had followed them. Here in a quiet alley Conyngham read again the address of the letter of which he earnestly desired to rid himself without more ado.

It was addressed to Colonel Monreal at No. 84 Plaza de Cadiz.

'Let his Excellency stay here and drink a glass of wine at this venta,' said Concepcion. 'Alone, I shall be able to get information without attracting attention. And then, in the name of the saints, let us shake the dust of Xeres off our feet. The first thing we see is steel, and I do not like it. I have a wife in Algeciras to whom I am much attached, and I am afraid—yes, afraid. A gentleman need never hesitate to say so.'

He shook his head forebodingly as he loosened his girths and called for water for the horses.

'I could eat a cocida,' he went on, sniffing the odours of a neighbouring kitchen, 'with plenty of onions and the mutton as becomes the springtime—young and tender. Dios! this quick travelling and an empty stomach, it kills one.'

'When I have delivered my letter,' replied Conyngham, 'we shall eat with a lighter heart.'

Concepcion went away in a pessimistic humour. He was one of those men who are brave enough on good wine and victuals, but lack the stamina to fight when hungry. He returned presently with the required information. The Plaza de Cadiz was, it appeared, quite close. Indeed, the town of Xeres is not large, though the intricacies of its narrow streets may well puzzle a new-comer. No. 84 was the house of the barber, and on his first floor lived Colonel Monreal, a retired veteran who had fought with the English against Napoleon's armies.

During his servant's absence, Conyngham had written a short note in French, conveying, in terms which she would understand, the news that Julia Barenna doubtless awaited with impatience; namely, that her letter had been delivered to him whose address it bore.

'I have ordered your cocida and some good wine,' he said to Concepcion. 'Your horse is feeding. Make good use of your time, for when I return I shall want you to take the road again at once. You must make ten miles before you sleep to-night, and then an early start in the morning.'

'For where, senor?'

'For Ronda.'

Concepcion shrugged his shoulders. His life had been spent upon the road, his wardrobe since childhood had been contained in a saddle- bag, and Spaniards, above all people, have the curse of Ishmael. They are a homeless race, and lay them down to sleep, when fatigue overtakes them, under a tree or in the shade of a stone wall. It often happens that a worker in the fields will content himself with the lee side of a haystack for his resting-place when his home is only a few hundred yards up the mountain side.

'And his Excellency?' inquired Concepcion.

'I shall sleep here to-night and proceed to Madrid to-morrow, by way of Cordova, where I will wait for you. I have a letter here which you must deliver to the Senorita Barenna at Ronda without the knowledge of anyone. It will be well that neither General Vincente nor any other who knows you should catch sight of you in the streets of Ronda.'

Concepcion nodded his head with much philosophy.

'Ah! these women,' he said, turning to the steaming dish of mutton and vegetables which is almost universal in the South, 'these women, what shoe leather they cost us!'

Leaving his servant thus profitably employed, Conyngham set out to find the barber's shop in the Plaza de Cadiz. This he did without difficulty, but on presenting himself at the door of Colonel Monreal's apartment learnt that that gentleman was out.

'But,' added the servant, 'the Colonel is a man of regular habits. He will return within the next fifteen minutes, for he dines at five.'

Conyngham paused. He had no desire to make Colonel Monreal's acquaintance, indeed preferred to remain without it, for he rightly judged that Senor Larralde was engaged in affairs best left alone.

'I have a letter for the Colonel,' he said to the servant, a man of stupid countenance. 'I will place it here upon his table, and can no doubt trust you to see that he gets it.'

'That you can, Excellency,' replied the man, with a palm already half extended to receive a gratuity.

'If the Colonel fails to receive the letter I shall certainly know of it,' said Conyngham, stumbling down the dark staircase, and well pleased to have accomplished his mission.

He returned with all speed to the inn in the quiet alley where he had elected to pass the night, and found Concepcion still at table.

'In half an hour I take the road,' said the Spaniard. 'The time for a cup of coffee, and I am ready to ride all night.'

Having eaten, Concepcion was in a better frame of mind, and now cheerfully undertook to carry out his master's instructions. In little more than half an hour he was in the saddle again, and waved an airy adieu to Conyngham as he passed under the swinging oil lamp that hung at the corner of the street.

It was yet early in the evening, and Conyngham, having dined, set out to explore the streets of Xeres, which were quiet enough now, as the cafes were gayer and safer than the gloomy thoroughfares where a foe might lurk in every doorway. In the market-place, between rows of booths and tents, a dense crowd walked backwards and forwards with that steady sense of promenading which the Spaniard understands above all other men. The dealers in coloured handkerchiefs from Barcelona or mantillas from Seville were driving a great trade, and the majority of them had long since shouted themselves hoarse. A few quack dentists were operating upon their victims under the friendly covert of a big drum and a bassoon. Dealers in wonderful drugs and herbs were haranguing the crowd, easily gaining the attention of the simple peasants by handling a live snake or a crocodile which they allowed to crawl upon their shoulders.

Conyngham lingered in the crowd, which was orderly enough, and amused himself by noting the credulity of the country folk, until his attention was attracted by a solemn procession passing up the market-place behind the tents. He inquired of a bystander what this might be.

'It is the police carrying to his apartment the body of Colonel Monreal, who was murdered this afternoon in the Plaza Mayor,' was the answer.

Conyngham made his way between two tents to the deserted side of the market-place, and, running past the procession, reached the barber's shop before it. In answer to his summons a girl came to the door of the Colonel's apartment. She was weeping and moaning in great mental distress.

Without explanation Conyngham pushed past her into the room where he had deposited the letter. The room was in disorder, and no letter lay upon the table.

'It is,' sobbed the girl, 'my husband, who, having heard that the good Colonel had been murdered, stole all his valuables and papers and has run away from me.'



CHAPTER XI. A TANGLED WEB.



'Wherein I am false, I am honest—not true to be true.'

'And—would you believe it?—there are soldiers in the house, at the very door of Julia's apartments.' Senora Barenna, who made this remark, heaved a sigh and sat back in her canework chair with that jerkiness of action which in elderly ladies usually betokens impatience with the ways of young people.

'Policemen—policemen, not soldiers,' corrected Father Concha patiently, as if it did not matter much. They were sitting in the broad vine-clad verandah of the Casa Barenna, that grim old house on the Bobadilla road, two miles from Ronda. The priest had walked thither, as the dust on his square-toed shoes and black stockings would testify. He had laid aside his mournful old hat, long since brown and discoloured, and was wiping his forehead with a cheap pocket-handkerchief of colour and pattern rather loud for his station in life.

'Well, they have swords,' persisted the lady.

'Policemen,' said Father Concha, in a stern and final voice, which caused Senora Barenna to cast her eyes upwards with an air of resigned martyrdom.

'Ah, that Alcalde!' she whispered between her teeth.

'A little dog, when it is afraid, growls,' said Concha philosophically. 'The Alcalde is a very small dog, and he is at his wit's end. Such a thing has not occurred in Ronda before, and the Alcalde's world is Ronda. He does not know whether his office permits him to inspect young ladies' love letters or not.'

'Love letters!' ejaculated Senora Barenna. She evidently had a keen sense of the romantic, and hoped for something more tragic than a mere flirtation begotten of idleness at sea.

'Yes,' said Concha, crossing his legs and looking at his companion with a queer cynicism. 'Young people mostly pass that way.'

He had had a tragedy, this old man. One of those grim tragedies of the cassock which English people rarely understand. And his tragedy sat beside him on the cane chair, stout and eminently worldly, while he had journeyed on the road of life with all his illusions, all his half-fledged aspirations, untouched by the cold finger of reality. He despised the woman now, the contempt lurked in his cynical smile, but he clung with a half-mocking, open-eyed sarcasm to his memories.

'But,' he said reassuringly, 'Julia is a match for the Alcalde, you may rest assured of that.'

Senora Barenna turned with a gesture of her plump hand indicative of bewilderment.

'I do not understand her. She laughs at the soldiers—the policemen, I mean. She laughs at me. She laughs at everything.'

'Yes, it is the hollow hearts that make most noise in the world,' said Concha, folding his handkerchief upon his knee. He was deadly poor, and had a theory that a folded handkerchief remains longer clean. His whole existence was an effort to do without those things that make life worth living.

'Why did you send for me?' he asked.

'But to advise me—to help me. I have been, all my life, cast upon the world alone. No one to help me—no one to understand. No one knows what I have suffered—my husband—'

'Was one of the best and most patient of mortals, and is assuredly in heaven, where I hope there are a few mansions reserved for men only.'

Senora Barenna fetched one of her deepest sighs. She had a few lurking in the depth of her capacious being, reserved for such occasions as this. It was, it seemed, no more than her life had led her to expect.

'You have had,' went on her spiritual adviser, 'a life of ease and luxury, a husband who denied you nothing. You have never lost a child by death, which I understand is—one of the greatest sorrows that God sends to women. You are an ungrateful female.'

Senora Barenna, whose face would have graced one of the very earliest of the martyrs, sat with folded hands waiting until the storm should pass.

'Do you wish me to see Julia?' asked Concha abruptly.

'Yes—yes! And persuade her to conciliate the Alcalde—to tell him some story or another. It does not surely matter if it be not the strict truth. Anything to get these men out of the house. My maid Maria is so flighty. Ah—these young people! What a trial—my dear Padre, what a trial!'

'Of course,' said Father Concha. 'But what a dull world it would be if our neighbour knew how to manage his own affairs! Shall we go to Julia?'

The perturbed lady preferred that the priest should see her daughter alone. A military-looking individual in white trousers and a dark green tunic stood guard over the door of Julia's apartment, seeking by his attitude and the curl of his moustache to magnify his office in the eyes of a maid who happened to have an unusual amount of cleaning to do in that particular corridor.

'Ah!' said Father Concha, by no means abashed by the sentinel's sword. 'Ah, it is you, Manuel. Your wife tells me you have objections to the christening of that last boy of yours, number five, I think. Bring number five on Sunday, after vespers—eh? You understand—and a little something for the poor. It is pay day on Saturday. And no more nonsense about religion, Manuel, eh?'

He shook his lean finger in the official's face and walked on unchallenged.

'May I come in?' he said, tapping at the door; and Julia's voice bade him enter.

He closed the door behind him and laid aside his hat. Then he stood upright, and slowly rubbing his hands together looked at Julia with the humorous twinkle lurking in his eye and its companion dimple twitching in his lean cheek. Then he began to feel his pockets, passing his hands down his worn cassock.

'Let me see, I had a love letter—was it from Don Carlos? At all events, I have lost it!'

He laughed, made a perfunctory sign of the cross and gave her his blessing. Then, his face having become suddenly grave as if by machinery at the sound of the solemn Latin benediction, he sat down.

Julia looked worn and eager. Her eyes seemed to search his face for news.

'Yes, my dear child,' he said. 'Politics are all very well as a career. But without a distinct profit they are worth the attention of few men, and never worth the thought of a woman.'

He looked at her keenly, and she turned to the window, which was open to admit the breath of violets and other flowers of the spring. She shrugged her shoulders and gave a sharp sigh.

'See here, my child,' said Padre Concha abruptly. 'For reasons which concern no one, I take a great interest in your happiness. You resemble some one whose welfare was once more important to me than my own. That was long ago, and I now consider myself first, as all wise men should. I am your friend, Julia, and much too old to be over-scrupulous. I peep and pry into my neighbours' affairs, and I am uneasy about you, my child.'

He shook his head and drummed upon the table with his dirty fingers.

'Thank you,' answered the girl with her defiant little laugh, 'but I can manage my own affairs.'

The priest nodded reflectively.

'Yes,' he said. 'It is natural that you should say that. One of the chief blessings of youth is self confidence. Heaven forbid that I should shake yours. But, you see, there are several people who happen to be anxious that this little affair should blow over and be forgotten. The Alcalde is a mule, we know that, and anything that serves to magnify himself and his office is likely to be prolonged. Do not play into his hand. As I tell you, there are some who wish to forget this incident, and one of them is coming to see you this afternoon.'

'Ah!' said the girl indifferently.

'General Vincente.'

Julia changed colour and her eyelids flickered for a moment as she looked out of the open window.

'A good friend,' continued Concha, 'but—'

He finished the phrase with an eloquent little gesture of the hand. At this moment they both heard the sound of an approaching carriage.

'He is coming now,' said Concha. 'He is driving, so Estella is with him.'

'Estella is of course jealous.'

The priest looked at her with a slow wise smile and said nothing.

'She—' began Julia, and then closed her lips—true to that esprit de sexe which has ruled through all the ages. Then Julia Barenna gave a sharp sigh as her mind reverted from Estella's affairs to her own.

Sitting thus in silence, the two occupants of the quiet room heard the approach of steps and the clink of spurs in the corridor.

'It is the reverendo who visits the senorita,' they heard the voice of the sentinel explain deprecatingly.

The priest rose and went to the door, which he opened.

'Only as a friend,' he said. 'Come in, General.'

General Vincente entered the room followed by Estella. He nodded to Concha and kissed his niece affectionately.

'Still obdurate?' he said, with a semi-playful tap on her shoulder. 'Still obdurate? My dear Julia, in peace and war the greatest quality in the strong is mercy. You have proved yourself strong— you have worsted that unfortunate Alcalde—be merciful to him now, and let this incident finish.'

He drew forward a chair, the others being seated, and laid aside his gloves. The sword which he held upright between his knees, with his two hands resting on the hilt, looked incongruously large and reached the level of his eyes. He gave a little chuckling laugh.

'I saw him last night at the Cafe Real—the poor man had the air of a funeral, and took his wine as if it were sour. Ah! these civilians, they amuse one—they take life so seriously.'

He laughed and looked round at those assembled as if inviting them to join him in a gayer and easier view of existence. The Padre's furrowed face answered the summons in a sudden smile, but it was with grave eyes that he looked searchingly at the most powerful man in Andalusia; for General Vincente's word was law south of the Tagus.

The two men sat side by side in strong contrast. Fate indeed seems to shake men together in a bag, and cast them out upon the world heedless where they may fall; for here was a soldier in the priest's habit, and one carrying a sword who had the keen heart and sure sympathy for joy or sorrow that should ever be found within a black coat if the Master's work is to be well done.

General Vincente smiled at Estella with sang-froid and an unruffled good nature, while the Padre Concha, whose place it surely was to take the lead in such woman's work as this, slowly rubbed his bony hands together, at a loss and incompetent to meet the urgency of the moment.

'Our guest left us yesterday morning,' said the General, 'and of course the Alcalde placed no hindrance on his departure.'

He did not look at Julia, who drew a deep breath and glanced at Estella.

'I do not know if Senor Conyngham left any message for you with Estella—to me he said nothing,' continued Estella's father; and that young lady shook her head.

'No,' she put in composedly.

'Then it remains for us to close this foolish incident, my dear Julia; and for me to remind you, seeing that you are fatherless, that there are in Spain many adventurers who come here seeking the sport of love or war, who will ride away when they have had their fill of either.'

He ceased speaking with a tolerant laugh, as one who, being a soldier himself, would beg indulgence for the failings of his comrades, examined the hilt of his sword, and then looked blandly round on three faces which resolutely refused to class the absent Englishman in this category.

'It remains, my dear niece, to satisfy the Alcalde—a mere glance at the letter—sufficient to satisfy him as to the nature of its contents.'

'I have no letter,' said Julia quietly, with her level red lips set hard.

'Not in your possession, but perhaps concealed in some place near at hand—unless it is destroyed.'

'I have destroyed no letter, I have concealed no letter, and I have no letter,' said the girl quietly. Estella moved uneasily in the chair. Her face was colourless and her eyes shone. She watched her cousin's face intently, and beneath his shaggy brows the old priest's eyes went from one fair countenance to the other.

'Then,' cried the General, rising to his feet with an air of relief, 'you have but to assure the Alcalde of this, and the whole incident is terminated. Blown over, my dear Concha—blown over!'

He tapped the priest on the shoulder with great good nature. Indeed, the world seemed sunny enough and free from cares when General Vincente had to deal with it.

'Yes—yes,' said the Padre, snuff-box in hand. 'Blown over—of course.'

'Then I may send the Alcalde to you, Julia—and you will tell him what you have told us? He cannot but take the word of a lady.'

'Yes—if you like,' answered Julia.

The General's joy knew no bounds.

'That is well,' he cried, 'I knew we could safely rely upon your good sense. Kiss me, Julia—that is well! Come, Estella—we must not keep the horses waiting.'

With a laugh and a nod he went towards the door. 'Blown over, my dear Concha,' he said over his shoulder.

A few minutes later the priest walked down the avenue of walnut trees alone. The bell was ringing for vespers, but the Padre was an autocratic shepherd and did not hurry towards his flock. The sun had set, and in the hollows of the distant mountains the shades of night already lay like a blue veil.

The priest walked on and presently reached the high road. A single figure was upon it—the figure of a man sitting in the shadow of an ilex tree half a mile up the road towards Bobadilla. The man crouched low against a heap of stones and had the air of a wanderer. His face was concealed in the folds of his cloak.

'Blown over,' muttered the Padre as he turned his back upon Bobadilla and went on towards his church. 'Blown over, of course; but what is Concepcion Vara doing in the neighbourhood of Ronda to- night?'



CHAPTER XII. ON THE TOLEDO ROAD.



'Une bonne intention est une echelle trop courte.'

Conyngham made his way without difficulty or incident from Xeres to Cordova, riding for the most part in front of the clumsy diligencia wherein he had bestowed his luggage. The road was wearisome enough, and the last stages, through the fertile plains bordering the Guadalquivir, dusty and monotonous.

At Cordova the traveller found comfortable quarters in an old inn overlooking the river. The ancient city was then, as it is now, a great military centre, and the headquarters of the picturesque corps of horse-tamers, the 'Remonta,' who are responsible for the mounting of the cavalry and the artillery of Spain. Conyngham had, at the suggestion of General Vincente, made such small changes in his costume as would serve to allay curiosity and prevent that gossip of the stable and kitchen which may follow a traveller to his hurt from one side of a continent to the other.

'Wherever you may go learn your way in and out of every town, and you will thus store up knowledge most useful to a soldier,' the General had said in his easy way.

'See you,' Concepcion had observed, wagging his head over a cigarette; 'to go about the world with the eyes open is to conquer the world.'

From his guide, moreover, whose methods were those that Nature teaches to men who live their daily lives in her company, Conyngham learnt much of that road craft which had raised Concepcion Vara to such a proud eminence among the rascals of Andalusia. Cordova was a good object upon which to practise, for Roman and Goth, Moor and Christian, have combined to make its tortuous streets well-nigh incomprehensible to the traveller's mind.

Here Conyngham wandered, or else he sat somnolently on a seat in the Paseo del Gran Capitan in the shade of the orange trees, awaiting the arrival of Concepcion Vara. He made a few acquaintances, as every traveller who is not a bear must needs do in a country where politeness and hospitality and a grave good fellowship are the natural habit of high and low alike. A bullfighter or two, who beguiled the long winter months, when the rings are closed, by a little innocent horse dealing, joined him quietly in the streets and offered him a horse—as between gentlemen of undoubted honour—at a price much below the current value. Or it was perhaps a beggar who came to him on the old yellow marble seat under the orange trees, and chatted affably about his business as being bad in these times of war. Once, indeed, it was a white-haired gentleman, who spoke in English, and asked some very natural questions as to the affairs that brought an Englishman to the town of Cordova. This sweet- spoken old man explained that strangers would do well to avoid all questions of politics and religion, which he classed together in one dangerous whole. Nevertheless, Conyngham thought that he perceived his ancient friend the same evening hurrying up the steps of the Jesuit College of La Campania.

Two days elapsed and Concepcion Vara made neither appearance nor sign. On the second evening Conyngham decided to go on alone, prosecuting his journey through the sparsely populated valley of the Alcadia to Ciudad Real, Toledo, and Madrid.

'You will ride,' the innkeeper told him, 'from the Guadalquivir to the Guadiana, and if there is rain you may be a month upon the road.'

Conyngham set out in the early morning, and as he threw his leg across the saddle the sun rose over the far misty hills of Ronda, and Concepcion Vara awoke from his night's rest under the wall of an olive terrace above the Bobadilla road, to begin another day of patient waiting and watching to get speech with the maid or the mistress; for he had already inaugurated what he lightly called 'an affair' with Julia's flighty attendant. The sun rose also over the plains of Xeres, and lighted up the picturesque form of Esteban Larralde, in the saddle this hour and more, having learnt that Colonel Monreal's death took place an hour before Conyngham's arrival in the town of Xeres de la Frontera. The letter, therefore, had not been delivered to Colonel Monreal, and was still in Conyngham's possession.

Larralde bestrode a shocking steed, and had but an indifferent seat in the saddle. Nevertheless, the dust rose beneath his horse's feet, and his spurs flashed in the sunlight as this man of many parts hurried on towards Utrera and Cordova.

In the old Moorish palace in Ronda, General Vincente, summoned to a great council of war at Madrid, was making curt military preparations for his journey and the conveyance of his household to the capital. Senora Barenna was for the moment forgetful of her nerves in the excitement of despatching servants in advance to Toledo, where she owned a summer residence. Julia was nervously anxious to be on the road again, and showed by every word and action that restlessness of spirit which is the inheritance of hungry hearts. Estella, quiet and self-contained, attended to the details of moving a vast and formal household with a certain eagerness which in no way resembled Julia's feverish haste. Estella seemed to be one of those happy people who know what they want.

Thus Frederick Conyngham, riding northward alone, seemed to be a pilot to all these persons into whose lives he had suddenly stepped as from a side issue, for they were one and all making ready to follow him to the colder plains of Castile, where existence was full of strife and ambition, of war and those inner wheels that ever jar and grind where politicians contend together for the mastery of a moment.

As he rode on, Conyngham left a message from time to time for his self-appointed servant. At the offices of the diligencias in various towns on the great road from Cordova to Madrid he left word for Concepcion Vara to follow, should the spirit of travel be still upon him, knowing that at these places where travellers were ever passing, the tittle-tattle of the road was on the tongue of every ostler and stable help. And truly enough there followed one who made careful inquiries as to the movements of the Englishman, and heard his messages with a grim smile. But this was not Concepcion Vara.

It was late one evening when Conyngham, who had quitted Toledo in the morning, began to hunger for the sight of the towers and steeples of Madrid. He had ridden all day through the bare country of Cervantes, where to this day Spain rears her wittiest men and plainest women. The sun had just set behind the distant hills of Old Castile, and from the east, over Aranjuez, where the great river cuts Spain in two parts from its centre to the sea, a grey cloud—a very shade of night—was slowly rising. The aspect of the brown plains was dismal enough, and on the horizon the rolling unbroken land seemed to melt away into eternity and infinite space.

Conyngham reined in and looked around him. So far as eye could reach, no house arose to testify to the presence of man. No labourer toiled home to his lonely hut. For, in this country of many wars and interminable strife, it has, since the days of Nebuchadnezzar, been the custom of the people to congregate in villages and small townships, where a common danger secured some protection against a lawless foe. The road rose and fell in a straight line across the table-land without tree or hedge, and Madrid seemed to belong to another world, for the horizon, which was distant enough, bore no sign of cathedral spire or castle height.

Conyngham turned in his saddle to look back, and there, not a mile away, the form of a hurrying horseman broke the bare line of the dusty road. There was something weird and disturbing in this figure, a suggestion of pursuit in every line. For this was not Concepcion Vara. Conyngham would have known him at once. This was one wearing a better coat; indeed Concepcion preferred to face life and the chances of the world in shirt sleeves.

Conyngham sat in his saddle awaiting the new-comer. To meet on such a road in Spain without pausing to exchange a salutation would be a gratuitous insult, to ride in solitude within hail of another traveller were to excite or betray the deepest distrust. It was characteristic of Conyngham that he already waved his hand in salutation, and was prepared to hail the new-comer as the jolliest companion in the world.

Esteban Larralde, seeing the salutation, gave a short laugh, and jerked the reins of his tired horse. He himself wore a weary look, as if the fight he had in hand were an uphill one. He had long recognised Conyngham; indeed the chase had been one of little excitement, but rather an exercise of patience and dogged perseverance. He raised his hat to indicate that the Englishman's gay salutations were perceived, and pulled the wide brim well forward again.

'He will change his attitude when it becomes apparent who I am,' he muttered.

But Conyngham's first word would appear to suggest that Esteban Larralde was a much less impressive person than he considered himself.

'Why, it's the devout lover!' he cried. 'Senor Larralde, you remember me, Algeciras, and your pink love letter—deuced fishy love letter, that; nearly got me into a devil of a row, I can tell you. How are you, eh?'

And the Englishman rode forward with a jolly laugh and his hand held out. Larralde took it without enthusiasm. It was rather difficult to pick a picturesque quarrel with such a person as this. Moreover, the true conspirator never believes in another man's honesty.

'Who would have expected to meet you here?' went on Conyngham jovially.

'It is not so surprising as you think.'

'Oh!'

There was no mistaking Larralde's manner, and the Englishman's gay blue eyes hardened suddenly and rather surprisingly.

'No, I have followed you. I want that letter.'

'Well, as it happens, Senor Larralde, I have not got your letter, and if I had I am not quite sure that I would give it to you. Your conduct in the matter has not been over-nice, and, to tell you the truth, I don't think much of a man who gets strangers and women to do his dirty work for him.'

Larralde stroked his moustache with a half-furtive air of contempt.

'I should have given the confounded letter to the Alcalde of Ronda if it had not been that a lady would have suffered for it, and let you take your chance, Senor Larralde.'

Larralde shrugged his shoulders.

'You would not have given it to the Alcalde of Ronda,' he said in a sneering voice, 'because you want it yourself. You require it in order to make your peace with Estella Vincente.'

'We are not going to talk of Senorita Vincente,' said Conyngham quietly. 'You say you followed me because you wanted that letter. It is not in my possession. I left it in the house of Colonel Monreal at Xeres. If you are going on to Madrid, I think I will sit down here and have a cigarette. If, on the other hand, you propose resting here, I shall proceed, as it is getting late.'

Conyngham looked at his companion with a nod and a smile which was not in the least friendly and at the same time quite cheerful. He seemed to recognise the necessity of quarrelling, but proposed to do so as light-heartedly as possible. They were both on horseback in the middle of the road, Larralde a few paces in the direction of Madrid.

Conyngham indicated the road with an inviting wave of the hand.

'Will you go on?' he asked.

Larralde sat looking at him with glittering eyes, and said nothing.

'Then I will continue my journey,' said the Englishman, touching his horse lightly with the spur. The horse moved on and passed within a yard of the other. At this moment Larralde rose in his stirrups and flung himself on one side.

Conyngham gave a sharp cry of pain and threw back his head. Larralde had stabbed him in the back. The Englishman swayed in the saddle as if trying to balance himself, his legs bent back from the knee in the sharpness of a biting pain. The heavy stirrups swung free. Then, slowly, Conyngham toppled forward and rolled out of the saddle, falling to the road with a thud.

Larralde watched him with a white face and staring eyes. Then he looked quickly round over the darkening landscape. There was no one in sight. This was one of the waste places of the world. Larralde seemed to remember the Eye that seeth even there, and crossed himself as he slipped from the saddle to the ground. He was shaking all over. His face was ashen, for it is a terrible thing to kill a man and be left alone with him.

Conyngham's eyes were closed. There was blood on his lips. With hands that shook like leaves Esteban Larralde searched the Englishman, found nothing, and cursed his ill fortune. Then he stood upright, and in the dim light his face shone as if he had dipped it in water. He crept into the saddle and rode on towards Madrid.

It was quite dark when Conyngham recovered consciousness. In turning him over to search his pockets Larralde had perhaps, unwittingly, saved his life by placing him in a position that checked the internal haemorrhage. What served to bring back the Englishman's wandering senses was the rumbling of heavy wheels and the crack of a great whip as a cart laden with hay and drawn by six mules approached him from the direction of Toledo.

The driver of the team was an old soldier, as indeed were most of the Castilians at this time, and knew how to handle wounded men. With great care and a multitude of oaths he lifted Conyngham on to his cart and proceeded with him to Madrid.



CHAPTER XIII. A WISE IGNORAMUS.



'God help me! I know nothing—can but pray.'

It was Father Concha's custom to attend, at his church between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, to such wants spiritual or temporal as individual members of his flock chose to bring to him.

Thus it usually happened that the faithful found the old priest at nine o'clock sunning himself at the front door of the sacred edifice, smoking a reflective cigarette and exchanging the time of day with passers-by or such as had leisure to pause a moment.

'Whether it is body or soul that is in trouble—come to me,' he would say. 'For the body I can do a little—a very little. I have twenty pounds a year, and it is not always paid to me, but I sometimes have a trifle for charity. For the soul I can do a little more.' After a storm of wind and rain, such as come in the winter- time, it was no uncommon sight to see the priest sweeping the leaves and dust from the church steps and using the strongest language at the bootmaker over the way whose business this was supposed to be.

'See!' he would cry to some passer-by. 'See!—it is thus that our sacristan does his work. It is for this that the Holy Church pays him fifteen—or is it twenty?—pesetas each year.'

And the bootmaker would growl and shake his head over his last; for, like most who have to do with leather, he was a man of small humour.

Here, too, mothers would bring their children—little girls cowering under their bright handkerchiefs, the mantilla of the poor, and speak with the Padre of the Confirmation and first Communion which had lately begun to hang like a cloud over the child's life. Father Concha would take the child upon his knee as he sat on the low wall at the side of the steps, and when the mother had left them, would talk quietly with the lines of his face wonderfully softened, so that before long the little girl would run home quite happy in mind and no longer afraid of the great unknown. Here, in the spring time, came the young men with thoughts appropriate to the season, and sheepish exceedingly; for they knew that Father Concha knew all about them, and would take an unfair advantage of his opportunities, refusing probably to perform the ceremony until he was satisfied as to the ways and means and prudence of the contracting parties—which of course he had no right to do. Here came the halt, the lame, the blind, the poor, and also the rich. Here came the unhappy. They came naturally and often. Here, so the bootmaker tells, came one morning a ruined man, who after speaking a few words to the Padre, produced a revolver and tried to shoot himself. And the Padre fell on him like a wild beast. And they fought, and fell, and rolled down the steps together into the road, where they still fought till they were white like millers with dust. Then at last the Padre got the strong man under him and took the revolver away and threw it into the ditch. Then he fell to belabouring the would-be suicide with his fists, until the big man cried for mercy and received it not.

'You saved his life,' the people said.

'It was his soul that I was caring for,' replied the Padre with his grim smile.

Concha was not a clever man, but he was wise. Of learning he had but little. It is easy, however, to be wise without being learned. It is easier still to be learned without being wise. The world is full of such persons to-day when education is too cheap. Concha steered his flock as best he could through the stormy paths of insurrection and civil war. He ruled with a rod of iron whom he could, and such as were beyond his reach he influenced by ridicule and a patient tolerance. True to his cloth, he was the enemy of all progress and distrusted every innovation.

'The Padre,' said the barber, who was a talker and a radical, 'would have the world stand still.'

'The Padre,' replied Concha, tenderly drying his chin with a towel, 'would have all barbers attend to their razors. Many are so busy shouting "Advance!" that they have no breath to ask whither they are going.'

On the whole, perhaps, his autocratic rule was a beneficent one, and contributed to the happiness of the little northern suburb of Ronda over which it extended. At all events, he was a watchful guardian of his flock, and knew every face in his parish.

It thus happened one morning that a strange woman, who had come quietly into church to pray, attracted his attention as he passed out after matins. She was a mere peasant and ill clad. The child seated on a chair by her side and staring with wondering eyes at the simple altar and stained-glass window had a hungry look.

Concha sat down on the low wall without the doors and awaited the exit of this devotee who was not of his flock. For though, as he often said, the good God had intended him for a soldier, his own strong will and simple faith had in time produced a very passable priest who, with a grim face, went about doing good.

The woman presently lifted the heavy leathern curtain and let out into the sunlight a breath of cool, incense-laden air.

She curtsied and paused as if expecting recognition. Concha threw away his cigarette and raised his hand to his hat. He had not lifted it except to ladies of the highest quality for some years, out of regard to symptoms of senile decay which had manifested themselves at the junction of the brim and the crown.

'Have I not seen your face before, my child?' he said.

'Yes, reverendo. I am of Ronda but have been living in Xeres.'

'Ah! then your husband is no doubt a malcontent?'

The woman burst into tears, burying her face in her hands and leaning against the wall in an attitude that was still girlish. She had probably been married at fifteen.

'No, reverendo! He is a thief.'

Concha merely nodded his head. He never had been a man to betray much pious horror when he heard of ill-doing.

'The two are almost identical,' he said quietly. 'One does what the other fears to do. And is your husband in prison? Is that why you have come back? Ah! you women—in foolishness you almost equal the men!'

'No, reverendo. I am come back because he has left me. Sebastian has run away, and has stolen all his master's property. It was the Colonel Monreal of Xeres—a good man, reverendo, but a politician.'

'Ah!'

'Yes, and he was murdered, as your reverence has no doubt seen in the newspapers. A week ago it was—the day that the Englishman came with a letter.'

'What Englishman was that?' inquired Father Concha, brushing some grains of snuff from his sleeve. 'What Englishman was that, my child?'

'Oh, I do not know! His name is unknown to me, but I could tell he was English from his manner of speaking. The Colonel had an English friend who spoke so—one engaged in the sherry in Xeres.'

'Ah yes! And this Englishman, what was he like?'

'He was very tall and straight, like a soldier, and had a moustache quite light in colour, like straw.'

'Ah yes. The English are so. And he left a letter?'

'Yes, reverendo.'

'A rose-coloured letter—?'

'Yes,' said the woman, looking at him with surprise.

'And tell me what happened afterwards. I may perhaps be able to help you, my child, if you tell me all you know.'

'And then, reverendo, the police brought back the Colonel who had been murdered in the streets—and I who had his Excellency's dinner on the table waiting for him!'

'And—'

'And Sebastian ate the dinner, reverendo.'

'Your husband appears to be a man of action,' said Concha with a queer smile. 'And then—'

'Sebastian sent me on a message to the town, and when I came back he was gone and all his Excellency's possessions were gone—his papers and valuables.'

'Including the letter which the Englishman had left for the Colonel?'

'Yes, reverendo. Sebastian knew that in these times the papers of a politician may perhaps be sold for money.'

Concha nodded his head reflectively and took a pinch of snuff with infinite deliberation and enjoyment.

'Yes—assuredly, Sebastian is one of those men who get on in the world—up to a certain point—and at that point they get hanged. There is in the universe a particular spot for each man—where we all think we should like to go if we had the money. For me it is Rome. Doubtless Sebastian had some such spot, of which he spoke when he was intoxicated. Where is Sebastian's earthly paradise, think you, my child?'

'He always spoke of Madrid, reverendo.'

'Yes—yes, I can imagine he would.'

'And I have no money to follow him,' sobbed the woman, breaking into tears again. 'So I came to Ronda, where I am known, to seek it.'

'Ah, foolish woman!' exclaimed the priest severely, and shaking his finger at her. 'Foolish woman to think of following such a person. More foolish still is it to weep for a worthless husband, especially in public, thus, on the church steps, where all may see. All the other women will be so pleased. It is their greatest happiness to think that their neighbour's husband is worse than their own. Failure is the royal road to popularity. Dry your tears, foolish one, before you make too many friends.'

The woman obeyed him mechanically with a sort of dumb hopelessness.

At this moment a horseman clattered past, coming from Ronda and hastening in the direction of Bobadilla or perhaps to the Casa Barenna. He wore his flat-brimmed hat well forward over the eyes, and kept his gaze fixed upon the road in front. There was a faint suggestion of assumed absorption in his attitude, as if he knew that the priest was usually at the church door at this hour, and had no desire to meet his eye. It was Larralde.

A few minutes later Julia Barenna, who was sitting at her window watching and waiting—her attitude in life—suddenly rose with eyes that gleamed and trembling hands. She stood and gazed down into the valley below, her attention fixed on the form of a horseman slowly making his way through the olive groves. Then breathlessly she turned to her mirror.

'At last!' she whispered, her fingers busy with her hair and mantilla, a thousand thoughts flying through her brain, her heart throbbing in her breast. In a moment the aspect of the whole world had changed—in a moment Julia herself was another woman. Ten years seemed to have rolled away from her heart, leaving her young and girlish and hopeful again. She gave one last look at herself and hurried to the door.

It was yet early in the day, and the air beneath the gnarled and ancient olive trees was cool and fresh as Julia passed under them to meet her lover. He threw himself out of the saddle when he saw her, and, leaving his horse loose, ran to meet her. He took her hands and raised her fingers to his lips with a certain fervour which was sincere enough. For Larralde loved Julia according to his lights, though he had another mistress, Ambition, who was with him always and filled his thoughts, sleeping or waking. Julia, her face all flushed, her eyes aglow, received his gallant greeting with a sort of breathless eagerness. She knew she had not Larralde's whole heart, and, woman-like, was not content with half.

'I have not seen you for nearly a fortnight,' she said.

'Ah!' answered Larralde, who had apparently not kept so strict an account of the days. 'Ah! yes—I know. But, dearest, I have been burning the high-roads. I have been almost to Madrid. Ah! Julia, why did you make such a mistake?'

'What mistake?' she asked with a sudden light of coquetry in her eyes. She thought he was about to ask her why she loved him. In former days he had had a pretty turn for such questions.

'In giving the letter to that scoundrel Conyngham—he has betrayed us, and Spain is no longer safe for me.'

'Are you sure of this?' asked Julia, alert. Had she possessed Larralde's whole heart she would have been happy enough to take part in his pursuits.

Larralde gave a short laugh and shrugged his shoulders.

'Heaven only knows where the letter is now,' he answered. Julia unfolded a note and handed it to him. She had received it three weeks earlier from Concepcion Vara, and it was from Conyngham, saying that he had left her note at the house of the Colonel.

'The Colonel was dead before Conyngham arrived at Xeres,' said Larralde shortly. 'And I do not believe he ever left the letter. I suspected that he had kept it as a little recommendation to the Christinos under whom he takes service. It would have been the most natural thing to do. But I have satisfied myself that the letter is not in his possession.'

'How?' asked Julia with a sudden fear that blanched her face.

Larralde smiled in rather a sickly way and made no answer. He turned and looked down the avenue.

'I see Father Concha approaching,' he said; 'let us go towards the house.'



CHAPTER XIV. A WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE.



'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 Senora 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, senora, 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 Senor 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.'

Senora 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 Senora 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 Senora 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, Inez—be seated. Padre—a chair.'

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

'When, my dear Inez—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 Senor 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 Inez. Is it not so? Now, a lemonade! the afternoon is warm.'

He rose and rang the bell.

'My nerves,' whispered the Senora 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 Senora 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 Inez; 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, Inez; 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 Senora 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 senorita 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 Senora 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.