Larralde spoke of general news, and when he at length proposed to Julia that they should take a 'paseo' in the garden the elder lady made no objection. For some moments Julia was quite happy. She had schooled herself into a sort of contentment in the hope that her turn would come when ambition failed. Perhaps this moment had arrived. At all events, Larralde acquitted himself well, and seemed sincere enough in his joy at seeing her again.

'Do you love me?' he asked suddenly.

Julia gave a little laugh. Heaven has been opened by such a laugh ere now, and men have seen for a moment the brightness of it.

'Enough to leave Spain for ever and live in another country?'

'Yes.'

'Enough to risk something now for my sake?'

'Enough to risk everything,' she answered.

'I have tried to gain a great position for you,' went on Larralde, 'and fortune has been against me. I have failed. The Carlist cause is dead, Julia. Our chief has failed us--that is the truth of it.

We set him up as a king, but unless we hold him upright he falls.

He is a man of straw. We are making one last effort, as you know, but it is a dangerous one, and we have had misfortunes. This pestilential Englishman! No one may say how much he knows. He has had the letter too long in his possession for our safety. But I have outwitted him this time.'

Larralde paused, and drew from his pocket the letter in the pink envelope--somewhat soiled by its pa.s.sage through the hands of Colonel Monreal's servant.

'It requires two more signatures and will then be complete,' said the upholder of Don Carlos. 'We shall then make our "coup," but we cannot move while Conyngham remains in Spain. It would never do for me to--well, to get shot at this moment.'

Julia breathed hard.

'And that is what Mr. Conyngham is endeavouring to bring about. In the first place he wants this letter to show to Estella Vincente-- some foolish romance. In the second place he hates me, and seeks promotion in the Royalist ranks. These Englishmen are unscrupulous.

He tried to take my life--only last night. I bear him no ill- feeling. A la guerre comme a la guerre. My only intention is to get him quietly out of Spain. It can be managed easily enough.

Will you help me--to save my own life?'

'Yes,' answered Julia.

'I want you to write a letter to Conyngham saying that you are tired of political intrigue.'

'Heaven knows that would be true enough,' put in Julia.

'And that you will give him the letter he desires on the condition that he promises to show it to no one but Estella Vincente and return it to you. That you will also swear that it is the identical letter that he handed to you in the General's garden at Ronda. If Conyngham agrees, he must meet you at the back of the Church of Santo Tome in the Calle Pedro Martir here, in Toledo, next Monday evening at seven o'clock. Will you write this letter, Julia?'

'And Estella Vincente?' inquired Julia.

'She will forget him in a week,' laughed Larralde.

CHAPTER XIX. CONCEPCION TAKES THE ROAD.

'Who knows? the man is proven by the hour.'

After the great storm came a calm almost as startling. It seemed indeed as if Nature stood abashed and silent before the results of her sudden rage. Day after day the sun glared down from a cloudless sky, and all Castile was burnt brown as a desert. In the streets of Madrid there arose a hot dust and the subtle odour of warm earth that rarely meets the nostrils in England. It savoured of India and other sun-steeped lands where water is too precious to throw upon the roads.

Those who could, remained indoors or in their shady patios until the heat of the day was past; and such as worked in the open lay unchallenged in the shade from midday till three o'clock. During those days military operations were almost suspended, although the heads of departments were busy enough in their offices. The confusion of war, it seemed, was past, and the sore-needed peace was immediately turned to good account. The army of the Queen Regent was indeed in an almost wrecked condition, and among the field officers jealousy and backbiting, which had smouldered through the war-time, broke out openly. General Vincente was rarely at home, and Estella pa.s.sed this time in quiet seclusion. Coming as she did from Andalusia, she was accustomed to an even greater heat, and knew how to avoid the discomfort of it.

She was sitting one afternoon, with open windows and closed jalousies, during the time of the siesta, when the servant announced Father Concha.

The old priest came into the room wiping his brow with simple ill manners.

'You have been hurrying and have no regard for the sun,' said Estella.

'You need not find shelter for an old ox,' replied Concha, seating himself. 'It is the young ones that expose themselves unnecessarily.'

Estella glanced at him sharply but said nothing. He sat, handkerchief in hand, and stared at a shaft of sunlight that lay across the floor from a gap in the jalousies. From the street under the windows came the distant sounds of traffic and the cries of the vendors of water, fruit, and newspapers.

Father Concha looked puzzled, and seemed to be seeking his way out of a difficulty. Estella sat back in her chair, half hidden by her slow-waving, black fan. There is no pride so difficult as that which is unconscious of its own existence, no heart so hard to touch as that which has thrown its stake and asks neither sympathy nor admiration from the outside world. Concha glanced at Estella and wondered if he had been mistaken. There was in the old man's heart, as indeed there is in nearly all human hearts, a thwarted instinct.

How many are there with maternal instincts who have no children; how many a poet has been lost by the crying need of hungry mouths! It was a thwarted instinct that made the old priest busy himself with the affairs of other people, and always of young people.

'I came hoping to see your father,' he said at length, blandly untruthful. 'I have just seen Conyngham, in whom we are all interested, I think. His lack of caution is singular. I have been trying to persuade him not to do something most rash and imprudent.

You remember the incident in your garden at Ronda--a letter which he gave to Julia?'

'Yes,' answered Estella quietly, 'I remember.'

'For some reason which he did not explain I understand that he is desirous of regaining possession of that letter, and now Julia, writing from Toledo, tells him that she will give it to him if he will go there and fetch it. The Toledo road, as you will remember, is hardly to be recommended to Mr. Conyngham.'

'But Julia wishes him no harm,' said Estella.

'My child, rarely trust a political man and never a political woman.

If Julia wished him to have the letter she could have sent it to him by post. But Conyngham, who is all eagerness, must needs refuse to listen to any argument, and starts this afternoon for Toledo--alone.

He has not even his servant Concepcion Vara, who has suddenly disappeared, and a woman who claims to be the scoundrel's wife from Algeciras has been making inquiries at Conyngham's lodging. A hen's eyes are where her eggs lie. I offered to go to Toledo with Conyngham, but he laughed at me for a useless old priest, and said that the saddle would gall me.'

He paused, looking at her beneath his s.h.a.ggy brows, knowing, as he had always known, that this was a woman beyond his reach--cleverer, braver, of a higher mind than her sisters--one to whom he might perchance tender some small a.s.sistance, but nothing better. For women are wiser in their generation than men, and usually know better what is for their own happiness. Estella returned his glance with steady eyes.

'He has gone,' said Concha. 'I have not been sent to tell you that he is going.'

'I did not think that you had,' she answered.

'Conyngham has enemies in this country,' continued the priest, 'and despises them--a mistake to which his countrymen are singularly liable. He has gone off on this foolish quest without preparation or precaution. Toledo is, as you know, a hotbed of intrigue and dissatisfaction. All the malcontents in Spain congregate there, and Conyngham would do well to avoid their company. Who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas.'

He paused, tapping his snuffbox, and at that moment the door opened to admit General Vincente.

'Oh! the Padre!' cried the cheerful soldier. 'But what a sun, eh?

It is cool here, however, and Estella's room is always a quiet one.'

He touched her cheek affectionately, and drew forward a low chair wherein he sat, carefully disposing of the sword that always seemed too large for him.

'And what news has the Padre?' he asked, daintily touching his brow with his pocket-handkerchief.

'Bad,' growled Concha, and then told his tale over again in a briefer, blunter manner. 'It all arises,' he concluded, 'from my pestilential habit of interfering in the affairs of other people.'

'No,' said General Vincente; 'it arises from Conyngham's pestilential habit of acquiring friends wherever he goes.'

The door was opened again, and a servant entered.