'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 G.o.d 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 att.i.tude 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 gra.s.s 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 rea.s.surances.

'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.