"You dare to love this man--you--vowed to the Church and to the service of the Gesu, whose secrets you hold? You dare not!"

"I dare all," she answered calmly. "This is not a matter of daring. It comes! It is! I did not make it. It does not go at my bidding, nor at yours. Besides, I did not bid it go. For one blessed moment I had at least the sensation of a possible happiness!"

"Nevertheless, he shamed you, rejected you, like the meanest whining lap-dog your foot spurns aside out of your path. He has done this to you--Valentine la Nina, called the Most Beautiful--to you, the King's daughter an you liked, an Infanta of Spain! Have you thought of that?"

"Thought?" she said, tapping her little foot on the floor, and with her strong right hand swaying the chair to and fro like a feather--"have I thought of it? What else have I done for many days and weeks? But whether he will love me or cast me off--the die is thrown. I am his and not another's. I may take revenge--for that is in my blood. I may cause him to suffer as he has made me suffer--and the woman also--especially the woman, the spy's daughter! But that does not alter the fact. I am his, and if he would, even when chained to the oar of the galley, a slave among slaves--he could whistle me to his side like a fawning dog!

For I am his slave--his slave!"

The last words were spoken almost inaudibly, as if to herself.

"And to the galleys he shall go!" said the Jesuit, "you have said it, and the idea is a good one. There he will be out of mischief. Yet he can be produced, if, in the time to come, his cousin the Bearnais, arrived at the crown of France, has time to make inquiries after him!"

A knife glittered suddenly before the eyes of the Jesuit. It was in the firm white hand of the girl vowed to the Society.

"See," she hissed, letting each word drop slowly from her lips, "see, Doctor Mariana, my uncle, you are not afraid of death--I know--but you do not wish to die now. There are so many things unfinished--so much yet to do. I know you, uncle! Now let me take my will of this young man.

Afterwards I am at your service--for ever--for ever--more faithfully than before!"

"How can I trust you?" said the Jesuit; "to-morrow you might go mad again!"

"These things do not happen twice in a lifetime," said Valentine la Nina, "and as for Jean d'Albret, I shall put him beyond the reach of any second chance!"

Her uncle nodded his head. He knew when a woman has the bit between her teeth, and though he had a remedy even for such cases, he judged that the present was not the time to use it.

So Valentine la Nina went out, the knife still in her hand.

The Jesuit of Toledo threw himself back on his writing-chair and wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

"_Ouff!_" he cried, emptying his chest with a gust of relief, "this is what it is to have to do with that wild animal, Woman! In Madrid they tame the tiger, till it takes victual from its keeper's very hand. He is its master, almost its lover; I have seen the tiger arch its back like a cat under the caress. It sleeps with the arm of the keeper about its neck! Till one day--one day--the tiger that was tamed falls upon the tamer, the master, the lover, the friend! So with a woman. Have I not trained and nurtured, pruned and cared for this soul as for mine own.

She was tame. She knew no will but mine. _Clack!_ In a moment, at sight of a comely youth in a court suit asleep, as Endymion on some Latmian steep, she is wild again. Better to let her go than perish, keeping her."

Mariana listened a while, but the chamber of his work was as far from the lugubrious noises of the den of Dom Teruel as if it had been the Place of Eyes itself. Neither could he hear any sound from the little summer parlour which had been put at the service of his niece.

The old worldly-wise smile came back upon his lips.

"It is none of my business, of course," he murmured, "but it strikes me that the youth D'Albret had better say his prayers--such, that is, as he can remember. I, for one, would not care twice to anger Valentine la Nina!"

He thought a while, and then with a grave air he added, "If I were a man of the world I would wager ten golden ounces to one, that within five minutes Master D'Albret knows more about eternity than the Holy Father himself and all his College of Cardinals. Well, better so! Then she will come back to us. She has served us well, Valentine la Nina, and now, having drunk the cup--_now_ she will serve us better than ever, or I know nothing of womankind!"

But Mariana, though he stood long with his ear glued to the crack of the door, could distinguish no sound within the summer parlour which Valentine la Nina had entered to look for the Abbe John.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

THE VENGEANCE OF VALENTINE LA NInA

When Valentine la Nina left him in the summer parlour where their interview had taken place, the Abbe John made no attempt to free himself. He seemed still half-unconscious, and, indeed, proceeded without rhyme or reason to make some repairs in the once gay court suit, exactly as if he had been seated in his tent in the camp of the Bearnais.

As yet he had no thought of escape. He was in the fortress of the Inquisition. The influence of the Place of Eyes was on him still. To escape appeared an impossibility to his weakened mind. Indeed, he thought only of the strange girl who had just talked with him. Was she indeed a king's daughter, with provinces to bring in dower, or----No, she could not lie. He was sure of that. She did _not_ lie, certainly, decided the Abbe John, with natural masculine favour towards a beautiful woman. A girl like that could not have lied. Mad--perhaps, yes, a little--but to lie, impossible.

So in that quiet place, he watched the slow wheeling of the long checkered bars of the window _grille_, and the shadows made by the branches of the Judas tree in the courtyard move regularly across the carpet. One of the leaves boarded his foot as he looked, climbed up the instep, and made a pretty shifting pattern upon the silken toe.

The Abbe John had resumed his customary position of easy self-possession--one ankle perched upon the opposing knee, his head thrown far back, his dark hair in some disorder, but curling naturally and densely, none the less picturesque because of that--when Valentine la Nina re-entered.

He rose at once, and in some surprise. She held a knife in her hand, and her face carried something about it of wild and dangerous, a kind of storm-sunshine, as it seemed.

"Hum," thought the Abbe John, as he looked at her, "I had better have stayed in the Place of Eyes! I see not why all this should happen to me.

I am an easy man, and have always done what I could to content a lady.

But this one asks too much. And then, after all, now there is Claire! I told her so. It is very tiresome!"

Nevertheless he smiled his sweet, careless smile, and swept back his curls with his hand.

"If I am to die, a fellow may as well do it with some grace," he murmured; "I wish I had been more fit--if only Claire had had the time to make me a better man!"

Yet it is to be feared that even in that moment the Abbe John thought more of the process (as outlined in his mind with Claire as instructress) than of the very desirable result.

What the thoughts of Valentine la Nina were when she left the presence of her uncle could hardly be defined even to her own mind. But seeing this young man so easy, so debonair in spite of his dishevelled appearance, the girl only held out her left hand. A faint smile, like the sun breaking momentarily through the thunder-clouds, appeared on her lips.

"I was wrong," she said; "let me help you only--I ask no more. Come!"

And without another word she led him into a narrow pa.s.sage, between two high walls. They pa.s.sed door after door, all closed, one of them being the chamber of Mariana, in which he sat like a spider spinning webs for the Society of the Gesu. What might have happened if that door had been suddenly opened in their faces also remains a mystery. For Valentine's arm was strong, and the dagger her hand held was sharp.

However, as it chanced, the doors remained shut, so that when they came to a little wicket, of solid iron like all the rest, the steel blade of the dagger still shone bright.

Then Valentine la Nina s.n.a.t.c.hed from a nail the long black mantle, with which any who left the House of the Holy Office by that door concealed from the curious their rank or errand. She flung it about John d'Albret's shoulders with a single movement of her arm.

"I do what I can," she said, "yield me the justice to allow that. I am giving you a chance to return to her. There--take it--now you are armed!"

She gave him the knife, and the sheath from which she had drawn it in her uncle's bureau.

"And now, bid me farewell--no thanks--I do not want them! You will not, I know, forget me, and I only ask you to pray that I may be able to forget you!"

The Abbe John stooped to kiss her hand, but she s.n.a.t.c.hed it behind her quickly.

"I think I deserve so much," she said softly, holding up her face, "not even she would deny me!"

And the Abbe John, quieting his soul by the vow of necessity, future confession, and absolution, kissed Valentine la Nina.

She gave one little sobbing cry, and would have fallen, had he not caught her. But she shook him off, striking angrily at his wrist with her clenched hand.

"No! No! _No!_" she cried; "go--I bid you--go, do not heed me. I am well. They may be here any moment. They are ever on the watch. It cannot be long. Go. I am repaid. She has never risked as much for you! Lock the door without!"

And she pushed him into the street, shut the door, and fell in a white heap fainting behind it, as John d'Albret turned the key outside.