"Consider well. Remember that your duty as a Christian is above your duty as a daughter."

Almost had she bluntly demanded the name of her father's accuser, that thus she might reach the object of her visit. Betimes she checked the rash impulse, perceiving that subtlety was here required; that a direct question would close the door to all information. Skilfully, then, she chose her line of attack.

"I am sure," she exclaimed, "that he is a more fervent and pious Christian--New-Christian though he be--than his accuser."

The wistfulness faded from Torquemada's eyes. They grew keen, as became the eyes of an inquisitor, the eyes of a sleuth, quick to fasten on a spoor. But he shook his head.

Ojeda advanced. "That I cannot believe," said he. "The deletion was made from a sense of duty so pure that the delator did not hesitate to confess the sin of his own commission through which he had discovered the treachery of Don Diego and his associates."

She could have cried out in anguish at this answer to her unspoken question. Yet she controlled herself, and that no single doubt should linger, she thrust boldly home.

"He confessed it?" she cried, seemingly aghast. The friar slowly nodded.

"Don Rodrigo confessed?" she insisted, as will the incredulous.

Abruptly the friar nodded again; and as abruptly checked, recollecting himself.

"Don Rodrigo?" he echoed, and asked: "Who mentioned Don Rodrigo?"

But it was too late. His assenting nod had betrayed the truth, had confirmed her worst fear. She swayed a little; the room swam round her, she felt as she would swoon. Then blind indignation against that forsworn betrayer surged to revive her. If it was through her weakness and undutifulness that her father had been destroyed, through her strength should he be avenged, though in doing so she pulled down and destroyed herself.

"And he confessed to his own sin?" she was repeating slowly, ever on that musing, incredulous note. "He dared confess himself a Judaizer?"

"A Judaizer!" Sheer horror now overspread the friar's grim countenance.

"A Judaizer! Don Rodrigo? Oh, impossible!"

"But I thought you said he had confessed."

"Why, yes, but... but not to that." Her pale lips smiled, sadly contemptuous.

"I see. He set limits of prudence upon his confession. He left out his Judatting practices. He did not tell you, for instance, that this deletion was an act of revenge against me who refused to marry him, having discovered his unfaith, and fearing its consequences in this world and the next."

Ojeda stared at her in sheer, incredulous amazement.

And then Torquemada spoke: "Do you say that Don Rodrigo de Cardona is a Judaizer? Oh, it is unbelievable."

"Yet I could give you evidence that should convince you."

"Then so you shall. It is your sacred duty, lest you become an abettor of heresy, and yourself liable to the extreme penalty."

It would be a half-hour later, perhaps, when she quitted the Convent of St. Paul to return home, with Hell in her heart, knowing in life no purpose but that of avenging the parent her folly had destroyed. As she was being carried past the Alcazar, she espied across the open space a tall, slim figure in black, in whom she recognized her lover, and straightway she sent the page who paced beside her litter to call him to her side. The summons surprised him after what had passed between them; moreover, considering her father's present condition, he was reluctant to be seen in attendance upon the beautiful, wealthy Isabella de Susan.

Nevertheless, urged on by curiosity, he went.

Her greeting increased his surprise.

"I am in deep distress, Rodrigo, as you may judge," she told him sadly.

"You will have heard what has befallen my father?"

He looked at her sharply, yet saw nothing but loveliness rendered more appealing by sorrow. Clearly she did not suspect him of betrayal; did not realize that an oath extorted by violence--and an oath, moreover, to be false to a sacred duty--could not be accounted binding.

"I... I heard of it an hour ago," he lied a thought unsteadily. "I... I commiserate you deeply."

"I deserve commiseration," answered she, "and so does my poor father, and those others. It is plain that amongst those he trusted there was a traitor, a spy, who went straight from that meeting to inform against them. If I but had a list it were easy to discover the betrayer. One need but ascertain who is the one of all who were present whose arrest has been omitted." Her lovely sorrowful eyes turned full upon him. "What is to become of me now, alone in the world?" she asked him. "My father was my only friend."

The subtle appeal of her did its work swiftly. Besides, he saw here a noble opportunity worth surely some little risk.

"Your only friend?" he asked her thickly. "Was there no one else? Is there no one else, Isabella?"

"There was," she said, and sighed heavily. "But after what befell last night, when... You know what is in my mind. I was distraught then, mad with fear for this poor father of mine, so that I could not even consider his sin in its full heinousness, nor see how righteous was your intent to inform against him. Yet I am thankful that it was not by your deletion that he was taken. The thought of that is to-day my only consolation."

They had reached her house by now. Don Rodrigo put forth his arm to assist her to alight from her litter, and begged leave to accompany her within. But she denied him.

"Not now--though I am grateful to you, Rodrigo. Soon, if you will come and comfort me, you may. I will send you word when I am more able to receive you--that is, if I am forgiven for..."

"Not another word," he begged her. "I honour you for what you did. It is I who should sue to you for forgiveness."

"You are very noble and generous, Don Rodrigo. God keep you!" And so she left him.

She had found him--had she but known it--a dejected, miserable man in the act of reckoning up all that he had lost. In betraying Susan he had acted upon an impulse that sprang partly from rage, and partly from a sense of religious duty. In counting later the cost to himself, he cursed the folly of his rage, and began to wonder if such strict observance of religious duty was really worth while to a man who had his way to make in the world. In short, he was in the throes of reaction.

But now, in her unsuspicion, he found his hopes revive. She need never know. The Holy Office preserved inviolate secrecy on the score of deletions--since to do otherwise might be to discourage delators--and there were no confrontations of accuser and accused, such as took place in temporal courts. Don Rodrigo left the Calle de Ataud better pleased with the world than he had been since morning.

On the morrow he went openly to visit her; but he was denied, a servant announcing her indisposed. This fretted him, damped his hopes, and thereby increased his longing. But on the next day he received from her a letter which made him the most ample amends:

"Rodrigo,--There is a matter on which we must come early to an understanding. Should my poor father be convicted of heresy and sentenced, it follows that his property will be confiscated, since as the daughter of a convicted heretic I may not inherit. For myself I care little; but I am concerned for you, Rodrigo, since if in spite of what has happened you would still wish to make me your wife, as you declared on Monday, it would be my wish to come to you well cowered. Now the inheritance which would be confiscated by the Holy Office from the daughter of a heretic might not be so confiscated from the wife of a gentleman of Castile. I say no more. Consider this well, and decide as your heart dictates. I shall receive you to-morrow if you come to me.

"Isabella."

She bade him consider well. But the matter really needed little consideration. Diego de Susan was sure to go to the fire. His fortune was estimated at ten million maravedis. That fortune, it seemed, Rodrigo was given the chance to make his own by marrying the beautiful Isabella at once, before sentence came to be passed upon her father. The Holy Office might impose a fine, but would not go further where the inheritance of a Castilian nobleman of clean lineage was concerned. He was swayed between admiration of her shrewdness and amazement at his own good fortune. Also his vanity was immensely flattered.

He sent her three lines to protest his undying love, and his resolve to marry her upon the morrow, and went next day in person, as she had bidden him, to carry out the resolve.

She received him in the mansion's best room, a noble chamber furnished with a richness such as no other house in Seville could have boasted.

She had arrayed herself for the interview with an almost wanton cunning that should enhance her natural endowments. Her high-waisted gown, low-cut and close-fitting in the bodice, was of cloth of gold, edged with miniver at skirt and cuffs and neck. On her white bosom hung a priceless carcanet of limpid diamonds, and through the heavy tresses of her bronze-coloured hair was coiled a string of lustrous pearls. Never had Don Rodrigo found her more desirable; never had he felt so secure and glad in his possession of her. The quickening blood flushing now his olive face, he gathered her slim shapeliness into his arms, kissing her cheek, her lips, her neck.

"My pearl, my beautiful, my wife!" he murmured, rapturously. Then added the impatient question: "The priest? Where is the priest that shall make us one?"

Deep, unfathomable eyes looked up to meet his burning glance.

Languorously she lay against his breast, and her red lips parted in a smile that maddened him.

"You love me, Rodrigo--in spite of all?"

"Love you!" It was a throbbing, strangled cry, an almost inarticulate ejaculation. "Better than life--better than salvation."

She fetched a sigh, as of deep content, and nestled closer. "Oh, I am glad--so glad--that your love for me is truly strong. I am about to put it to the test, perhaps."

He held her very close. "What is this test, beloved?"

"It is that I want this marriage knot so tied that it shall be indissoluble save by death."

"Why, so do I," quoth he, who had so much to gain.