Chapter 16

ENGAGED

On the morning of the fifteenth day after Arthur had received Count Silvio's challenge, the two seconds met and arranged for the duel to take place at a distance of a mile from the town. It was to be at seven in the morning, so that there would be no fear of interruption. Each of the gentlemen was provided with a piece of string, the length of the sword of his principal. These were found to be as nearly as possible the same length. It was agreed that the count should bring a surgeon with him, and that no other, save the seconds, should be present at the encounter. Don Lopez went round to Arthur's chambers half an hour before the time to start. Arthur had, the night before, told Roper of what was going to happen, and given him instructions as to the disposal of his horses. "Take anything you like yourself, Roper. What money I have will be in that desk; you may take that to pay for your journey home. You will want it, as we both sent to England the sums we had in the bank."

"I have no fear, captain, that I shall have to take any such step. I feel sure that no Spaniard is a match for you."

"You can't know that, and certainly I have no reason to believe so. If it came to downright hard hitting I fancy I could hold my own against most Spaniards, but in fencing it is a different thing; it is not a question of strength only by a long way."

"Some of the Spaniards are good hardy men, captain, no doubt; but very few of these will be found among the gentry, who pass the day in sleeping, dawdling about, and smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. Well, I suppose, sir, there is no harm in my going out and taking up a place where I can see what goes on?"

"None at all, Roper; I have no doubt that the count will have a number of his friends to look on. I am sure he expects to run me through without trouble, and he will like to show off his prowess before his friends."

They drove in a carriage to the place fixed upon for the encounter. As Arthur had expected, a score or two of gentlemen had collected near. He spoke to his second, who went up to that of his antagonist and said: "My principal understood that this matter was to be kept private, and that none but ourselves should be informed of it."

This was repeated to the count, who shrugged his shoulders and said: "I mentioned it to a few friends, and no doubt they told others, but it makes no difference whatever."

Arthur pressed his lips tightly together when the answer was repeated to him. "You want your performances to be seen, eh?" he muttered. "Perhaps you will be sorry you have got so many witnesses before you have done."

The preliminaries were speedily settled, and the two antagonists removed their coats and waistcoats, and faced each other. The count began with a few preliminary flourishes, intended to show off his swordsmanship, and how lightly he thought of the encounter. He was fully half a head shorter than his antagonist, and the latter's much longer reach would have given him a decided advantage had they been equal in other respects. Arthur stood firmly on guard, contenting himself with putting aside almost contemptuously the other's play. He waited till the count steadied down and began in earnest. Then, to the astonishment of his antagonist, he took the offensive. In vain the latter tried to get within his point; in vain he exerted himself to the utmost, springing in and out; with scarce a movement of his wrist Arthur's point played in a little menacing circle. There were no fierce lunges to be turned aside, no openings left to be taken advantage of. Steadily Arthur advanced, and foot by foot his antagonist had to give way.

In vain the count exerted himself to his utmost. The perspiration streamed from his face, and his expression changed from that of half-contemptuous superiority to rage and uneasiness. Again and again the count felt that his adversary was but playing with him, and that he avoided taking advantage of openings that had been left him. His opponent's face was grave and earnest, but without any other emotion. Little by little Arthur's advance was accelerated. In vain the Spaniard attempted to stand his ground against the menacing point. In spite of his greatest efforts he had to give way, and was driven backwards across the green sward on which the encounter was taking place, till he was close to its boundary. Then there was a sudden wrench, and his sword was sent flying through the air.

Arthur lowered his point, and said in a quiet, deliberate voice that could be heard by all the astonished spectators: "You seem to be a little out of breath, se�or; perhaps you would like to wait for three or four minutes before we begin again?"

The count, white with rage and shame, walked and picked up his sword.

"Now, se�or," Arthur went on, after a pause of two or three minutes, "we will recommence the affair. Hitherto I have but played with you, now I warn you that I shall run you through the shoulder when I get you to the other side of the field."

Again the singular scene began. In vain the count endeavoured to circle round his foe; in vain he tried to arrest his own steady retreat. Move as he would to change his position, Arthur with his long stride and quick spring always kept in front of him. In a quarter of an hour he was driven back across the field; then for the first time Arthur lunged. His antagonist's sword dropped useless by his side as he ran him through the upper part of the arm and shoulder.

"This may perhaps serve as a lesson to you, count, not to pick quarrels gratuitously with strangers of whose force you are unacquainted. Your life has been in my hands a hundred times had I chosen to avail myself of the openings, but I did not wish seriously to injure you. You have brought a number of gentlemen here to-day to witness your triumph: I trust that they have been amused."

So saying, he turned and walked back to the spot where he had left his clothes, put them on, and entered the carriage with his second, beckoning to Roper, who was standing a short distance away, to get up on the box.

"Truly you have astounded me!" Don Lopez said. "I thought that with your height and length of arm you would give him some trouble, but such an exhibition as this was never seen!" and he burst into a fit of laughter. "The count won't be able to show his face in Madrid again for I know not how long. The wound to his body is nothing, but that to his pride is terrible. He will never hear the end of it. To think that he was driven right across a field as if he had been a pig under a peasant's goad, without a possibility of stopping; that he should have been disarmed and played with, is too funny. Of course, the thing will get about all over Madrid. You will have to be careful, though, Don Arthur, how you go out after dark, or you may find yourself with a dagger between your shoulders. It would scarcely be in human nature for a man to put up with being made a public laughing-stock without trying to get his revenge, and certainly Don Silvio is not, from what I know of him, likely to be an exception to the rule."

"Yes; no doubt I shall have to be careful. I suppose one can buy such a thing as a shirt of link armour in Madrid?"

"Oh, yes! there are plenty of them to be picked up in the shops where they keep old weapons and curiosities; a good one costs money though."

"Money is nothing," Arthur said. "If one gets such a thing one wants to have as good a one, and at the same time as light a one, as money can buy. Would you mind getting one for me, Lopez? I would rather not be seen buying such a thing myself."

"With pleasure. I will make a tour of all the shops where they are likely to keep such things, and pick out the best that I can find for you, and it is hard if I don't manage to get you one by this evening; although I think you are safe for a few days, for were you found stabbed now, everyone would put it down to Don Silvio at once. I should say that he would hardly attempt such a thing in Madrid. You are likely to be in much greater danger when you go off to join the army again."

"Yes, I think that would be the case; but still, I would rather not risk his beginning at once."

"Quite right! I certainly should not if I were in your place."

On reaching his apartments Arthur sat down to breakfast with his friend. Not until the latter had left did Roper make any allusion to the scene he had witnessed.

"Now, Captain Hallett," he said, on returning to the room after letting the visitor out, "what did I tell you it would be? I stayed at a distance and roared with laughter. It was the funniest thing I ever saw--to see him dancing with rage, and you pushing him steadily backwards with scarcely a movement of your sword. It was worse than a fight I once saw in the streets of Liverpool. One of those bullying fellows who stand at the corners of streets and insult passers-by pushed against a quiet-looking chap that was passing him. Well, sir, this happened to be a noted prize-fighter, and the way he gave that fellow pepper was worth walking a good many miles to see. There is no fear of your having to fight another duel while you are out here."

"I think not, Roper; but at the same time I shall have to be careful. When a Spaniard cannot get revenge any other way, sometimes he hires an assassin to put a dagger between his enemy's shoulders."

"Well, sir, I must take to going out with you, and we must not be out after dark."

"I am going to have even a better guard than you would be. I have asked Don Lopez to get me a shirt of mail. People used to wear them a good deal in olden times, and I feel that I shall be all the safer for using one for a bit."

"That will be a good plan, sir; still, at the same time, it might be advisable for me to keep near you. I may as well be doing that as anything else, and if there is to be any sticking with knives I should like to have a hand in it."

"Very well, Roper; at any rate, you can walk with me when I am going anywhere. Of course, I cannot tell always at what hour I may be returning, and I should not like to keep you waiting about for hours."

"Oh, you could tell me the hour before which you would not be leaving, captain, then I would be at hand at that time. I may as well smoke my pipe there as anywhere else. The chances are that I should always find someone to talk to."

Three hours later Leon came in.

"What is this you have been doing?" he said excitedly. "I have been to the club, and nothing else is being talked about but a duel between you and Count Silvio de Mora. They say it was the strangest fight ever seen--that you drove him across the meadow, then disarmed him, and told him to get his breath; then drove him back again; and finally, after sparing him fifty times, you ran him through the shoulder."

"These are about the facts of the case," Arthur replied quietly. "I should have been very glad if nothing had been said about the affair, and I arranged that no one but our seconds and the surgeon should be present. Instead of that, the count chose to tell some thirty or forty of his friends; no doubt he thought to make an example of me. The consequence is, as you say, that the affair has got all over the town, to my great annoyance."

"But what was the quarrel about?"

"It was about a private matter, and I would rather that you did not ask me to tell you more; enough that he forced it upon me."

"But, my dear Arthur, it seems to me that this must affect me. Why should the count have fixed a quarrel upon you? If he had forced one upon me, on account of Mercedes throwing him over a year ago, I should not have been surprised; though I don't know why he should have done so, as he appeared to have taken his dismissal in very good part. Why should he quarrel with you?"

"Because it was his fancy, I suppose, Leon."

"Tut, tut!" the other said warmly. "It seems to me that this is a matter that concerns my family, and I must really ask you, my dear Arthur, to tell me frankly how it occurred."

Arthur sat silent for a minute.

"Well, Leon, I may as well ask you a question now which I should have asked you shortly. I have long loved your sister Mercedes. I have refrained from speaking, for three reasons. In the first place, because I am very young. You have chosen to laugh at me when I said so, but in point of fact I am only twenty."

"Only twenty!" Leon said incredulously; "I have always taken you to be as old as myself."

"And I have told you that I was not so. I repeat, I am not yet twenty, and am therefore only a year older than your sister. The second reason I have regarded as more serious: I am an Englishman, and should necessarily take her home if she married me. In the third place, I was not in a position pecuniarily to ask her to be my wife until I was five-and-twenty and came into my estate. The last of these reasons has ceased to exist by my having received from the queens a present of one hundred thousand crowns for the service I rendered them. I had begged them very strongly not to offer me any reward for that service, but Christina said that it was impossible for them to remain under so great an obligation to me. In spite of that I should have still refused, or, if I found that I could not do so, have handed over the money for the benefit of the poor; but the thought that it would at least remove one of the obstacles that stood in the way of my asking you for your sister's hand, decided me in accepting it, as it would enable me to keep her in a position similar to that which she has held at home, until I come into my estate. That estate was worth at my father's death about one thousand English pounds a year. Then there is, of course, a good house and grounds, and the accumulation of the income during the past ten years will have amounted to a sum which would enable me to double the size of the estate. Therefore, I have only the first two difficulties. It is for you to decide whether these are insuperable. So, Leon, I ask you now for the hand of your sister, and I can promise that, if you grant it and she consents, I will do all in my power to make her happy."

Leon rose and grasped Arthur by the hand. "Nothing can give me greater pleasure, my clear fellow, than to grant the request you have made. I shall, of course, be sorry to lose her, but England is not so far from Spain, and I doubt not that you will bring her over to see us sometimes. I and my sisters may even visit you occasionally in England. There is no one to whom I would so gladly see her united, for you have fairly won her. You saved her from death, and I have ever since hoped that some day you would claim her. As to her feelings I can, of course, say nothing, but I am not altogether blind, and it has long been evident to me that she thinks of no one but you. As to money, it is a secondary matter, though I do not say that it is not an advantage that you should have an income of your own, and not owe everything to her. She has, however, a not inadequate portion, as my mother was an only daughter and a wealthy heiress, and her fortune will be divided between my three sisters: her share would amount roughly to some seven or eight thousand crowns a year. There is but one drawback to the match, and that is the difference of religion. You know how bigoted we Spaniards are; we do not allow any Protestant place of worship to exist, save only the private chapel of your ambassador; and the priesthood will move heaven and earth to prevent this marriage taking place. Indeed, it seems to me that the only plan will be for me to take her to England, and for her to be married there. However, the obstacle is not a serious one in my eyes. That you are a Protestant is amply sufficient to show that there are as good men of one religion as of another. Well, will you come with me at once?"

"I will come this evening, Leon. I would rather it had not been settled to-day, when I have just been engaged in shedding blood. However, that was not my fault. Will you be alone this evening?"

"Yes, so far as I know."

"Then I will come in after dinner. I am more nervous about this than I was before meeting Count Silvio. You see, you have so long made up your mind that I was a man, while I have been thinking, and still feel, that I am only a boy."

"Nonsense, Arthur! you stand over six feet. You have the strength of two ordinary Spaniards. You have accomplished marvels and won the gratitude of queens. It is perfectly ridiculous for you to talk in that way. Well, then, I shall expect you this evening. Mercedes and the girls have gone out this morning, and no doubt she will, in the course of her visits, have heard of your prowess to-day, which will be a good introduction, although I do not think she will be surprised in any way, as her confidence in your abilities to do anything you undertake is absolute."

Don Lopez came in late that afternoon. "I have seen quite a perfect coat of mail," he said. "It was made for a bishop of Toledo who had many enemies, and is a hundred and fifty years old. It is very light, and can withstand any dagger thrust. It is dear: the man wants five hundred crowns for it, and declares that he will not take a penny less."

"Thank you, Lopez! that will suit me admirably. I will give you an order for that sum. Will you ask him to send it round to me in the morning?"

Arthur was very nervous when he started that evening for Count Leon's. He still felt in many respects a boy, and in spite of Leon's report, he felt it hardly possible that Donna Mercedes could have come to love him. He dressed himself in his evening suit with unusual care, but did not start till the last moment. He was shown up into the drawing-room as usual. Mercedes and her two sisters were in the room.

"I have to quarrel with you," the former said laughingly. "I hear that you have been cruelly ill-treating a gentleman in whom I had once great interest;--not only ill-treating him, but turning him into a laughing-stock. Now, se�or, I demand that you tell us what it was about, and why you have thus assailed a gentleman to whom, as you know, I was once much attached."

"Were you much attached to him, Donna Mercedes?"

"Well," she said, pouting, "you know I was all but affianced to him."

"By your own wishes, se�ora?"

"Well, never mind about my own wishes," she said; "it is quite sufficient that I was almost affianced to him. Now I demand from you again a true and complete history how this came about."

"Well," he said, "you can hardly expect, se�ora, that I should go into particulars of this kind before your sisters--young ladies, who cannot but be horrified by deeds of violence."

Mercedes laughed. "Well, you will tell me some day, won't you, what it was all about, and why you so ill-treated him? I hear that he will not be able to show his face for some time in Madrid."

"I will tell you all that is good for you to learn," he said in a tone of banter. "I know that you must be grieving terribly over it."

"Of course I am, dreadfully!" the girl said. "When I heard how you had been treating him, I almost made up my mind not to speak to you again. Ah! here is Leon, and looking as serious as a judge."

Leon came up to Mercedes, and to her surprise took her by the hand.

"Little sister," he said, "I have a very serious duty to perform. I have had another request for your hand."

The girl turned pale. "You know," she said, "that I do not intend to marry, Leon; I have told you so over and over again."

"That may be so, sister; but I believe that ladies change their minds in these matters not infrequently. The gentleman who is your suitor is not unknown to you. He is of good blood and honourable position. You will, perhaps, anticipate his name. It is the Cavalero Captain Arthur Hallett, a Knight of Isabella of the first class, and a Companion of the order of Fernando the Catholic."

The girl's face, which had been set with a mutinous expression, changed suddenly, a deep wave of colour rushed over her face, and her head drooped.

"He has my willing consent to the alliance, Mercedes; indeed, I know of no one in the world to whom I could so willingly commit you and your happiness."

"I know, se�ora," Arthur said, "that I am very unworthy of so great a gift, but at least I can promise to do my best to make you happy."

The girl lifted her head suddenly. "Do not say that you are unworthy," she said. "It is I who should say that. Have you not saved me from death? Have you not saved Spain from being ruined? It is I who feel, above all things, honoured by your love."

Then Leon said, with a slight smile: "I don't think that there is any occasion for me to lay my orders upon you on the subject. Take her, Arthur. I can trust her happiness in your hands with a certainty that my confidence will not be abused;" and he gave her hand to Arthur, who bent down and kissed her.

The two younger girls clapped their hands loudly. "Oh, Arthur!" Inez exclaimed, "I shall never call you Don Arthur again. We are pleased! We always knew that Mercedes was fond of you--anyone could have seen that with half an eye, but we did not know what you felt towards her. We are pleased, I cannot tell you how much! I believe we are more pleased than she is."

"Now, you madcap!" her brother said; "suppose you two come in with me to the next room, and let us leave these two young people alone."

"And did you really doubt that I loved you?" Mercedes said a short time afterwards. "I have been so afraid of showing it too much; but after being carried in your arms all that journey, I knew that I could never marry anyone else. If you had not asked for me before you went away, I should have assuredly gone into a convent."

Half an hour later the others returned to the room, and they held a long conversation together. It was finally agreed, in view of the opposition that would be raised by the Spanish clergy on the ground of the difference of religion, that the engagement should be kept quiet for a time, and that things should go on as they were.

"It cannot be many months before this war is over," Leon said, "and you will be returning to England. You will necessarily be away a great deal, and it will avoid much trouble and argument if you assent to the matter being kept quiet."

Both Mercedes and Arthur agreed that it would be better so, as they felt sure that there would be a vehement opposition on the part of the clergy if a member of a noble family contracted a marriage with a heretic.

To Arthur's surprise, when he called next morning, Mercedes, who received him alone, said with a flush, "Good-morning, Arthur!" in English. He looked at her with surprise.

"Do you mean to say that you understand English, Mercedes?"

"I have been learning it for the past year," she said in imperfect English, but with a pretty accent. "I loved you, Arthur, after you had saved me, and so I loved everything English; and as I had plenty of time upon my hands I have spent two hours a day ever since in learning it. I had no difficulty in finding a mistress, for several English families settled in the town after the last war."

"And you thought, perhaps, that it would come in useful, Mercedes?"

"I did not quite like to think that," she said, glancing at him; "but it seemed to me that perhaps, as I loved you so much, you might some day come to love me. I never quite thought so, you know, but I could not help sometimes hoping it. Anyhow, sir, it is quite enough for you that, whatever was the reason, I have learned English; and now, when we are together alone you must always talk it with me. I want to get to speak quite perfectly before I go to England and meet your friends."

"You really talk it very fairly now," he said, "and you must not be in the least afraid that anyone will find fault with you."

"I suppose you have heard," Leon said a few days later, "that Don Silvio is still in Madrid. They say he will see no one."

"I shall feel rather glad when he is gone, Leon. He is evidently a revengeful fellow; that is quite clear by the way in which he fixed a quarrel upon me. He won't do anything himself, but I think he is quite capable of hiring a ruffian to put me out of the way. I know that plenty of unprincipled characters are to be found in the city who would willingly do the job for a few dollars."

"I have no doubt about that, and I was intending to speak seriously to you on the subject. Things are still very quiet, but I dare say Colonel Wylde would send you to one or other of the armies if you were to ask him."

"I am not at all disposed to go until I am obliged to; I am enjoying myself a great deal too much for that. But I have taken precautions. Roper comes with me every evening to your house, and meets me at the door when I go away; and, moreover, I have bought a shirt of mail. It is a splendid example of the best sort of work of that kind. I have put it on the table and tried to drive a knife through it, but, striking with all my force, I simply broke the weapon and did not injure the chain. I put it on now whenever I go out after dark."

"I am very glad to hear it. No amount of strength or bravery can save a man from the hands of an assassin, and a good mail shirt is worth a score of guards, for a man who bides his time will always find a chance sooner or later."

"That is how I look at it, and I can assure you that I am far too happy at the present time to be willing to throw away the smallest chance."

Three days later Don Lopez called at Arthur's rooms.

"I have heard this morning that Don Silvio has gone out of town. Now you will have to look to yourself. So long as he was here I considered that you were safe, for if anything happened to you suspicion would at once fall upon him. Now that he is away, people might suspect as much as they liked, but it would be extremely difficult to bring the matter home to him."

"But I should hardly think he will do anything more in the matter," Arthur said.

"I think quite the contrary," Lopez replied. "If you had simply met him and wounded him, the thing might have passed off quietly. That would have shown that you were the better swordsman, and there would have been an end of it. But you have made him the laughing-stock of the town. It will be a joke against him all his life that he was driven about like a sheep by a man whom he boasted he was going to kill like a dog, and he will never get over it. No one could stand such disgrace with equanimity, but of course it is infinitely worse for a man as proud and as touchy about his family as he is."

"I will look out, but I don't think any precautions will be of much value. If a man wants to stab you, he is sure to find an opportunity sooner or later. However, I have my coat of mail, and I rely more upon that than on any vigilance on my part or on Roper's."

Two days later, when Arthur was returning home from Leon's, two men sprang out from a dark entry and struck at his back. Sharp exclamations broke from them as, instead of their knives burying themselves to the hilt, they struck on a hard substance. Arthur was nearly knocked down by the force of the blows, but, springing round, he seized both men by the throat before they could recover from their surprise. Roper, who was walking some ten paces in the rear, rushed up.

"All right, Roper, I have got them!" Arthur cried, and, squeezing their throats, he dashed their heads together with all his strength two or three times, with the result that as he released his hold they fell to the ground insensible.

"I think we will walk on, Roper. I must have pretty nearly broken their skulls, to say nothing of half-choking them. If we were to give them into custody it would be an endless affair, and I might be kept here for months. They will certainly not repeat the experiment, and whatever attempt Don Silvio may make next, it will not be in the same direction."

The next morning he told Leon of what had happened.

"I don't know whether you did right to let them go, Arthur. There is nothing to prevent this fellow from trying again in some other way."

"Nor would there have been if I had given them into custody. You may be sure that his bribes would be large enough to secure their silence as to who had employed them, and they would simply have declared that they only attacked me to obtain possession of any valuables I might have about me. Don Silvio is rich, and it is a hundred to one that, before the trial came on, the men would have escaped. A hundred pounds would bribe any jailer in Spain. If by accident this failed, he would bribe the judges, so that nothing would ever come out against the villain who set the men on me, and I might be kept dancing attendance on the courts for months."

"That is true enough, Arthur. Still, the matter would be kept hanging over his head, and until it was settled he would be hardly likely to make another attempt upon you. However, we need not discuss it now that you have let the fellows go scot-free."

"I have not let them go scot-free, I can assure you. In the first place I nearly strangled them, and in the second I am by no means sure that I did not fracture their skulls."

"That sort of man has got a very hard skull," Leon answered. "Probably you would have fractured mine if you had dashed it against somebody else's with those muscular arms of yours, but I have doubts whether the head of a professional bravo would not stand even such a blow as that--I won't say with impunity, but at least without any very serious damage."

"Don't say anything to Mercedes about it, it would only fidget her. And I can assure you it does not disquiet me. The mail shirt has indisputably proved that it is knife-proof, and when Don Silvio receives the reports from these two gentlemen he will see that all attempts to dispose of me in that way will be in vain. I give him credit for ingenuity, and it is quite possible he will hit upon some other idea. However, I trust that I shall be able to meet it, whatever it is; and indeed I shall be somewhat interested to see what his next plan may be."

"What do you say, Arthur, to my mentioning this affair at the club, and saying loudly that I have no doubt whatever it is the outcome of your duel with him?"

"My dear Leon, that would simply entail his challenging you, and the man really doesn't fence badly. It was only my superior length of arm and sheer strength that overbore him."

"I could refuse to fight him," Leon said.

"No, I don't think you could, and certainly I should not like you to do so. You and I may feel perfectly convinced that this attack upon me last night was his work, but we have no absolute proof of it. The fact that I beat him in a duel simply shows that I am a much better swordsman than he is, and is no reflection upon his character. So you see, if you were to bring this accusation against him, without having a shadow of real proof, I doubt if you could refuse to meet him. You see, the man has a large circle of friends and relatives, and possesses much influence. You were willing to accept him as a brother-in-law, and although just at present the town has a laugh against him, that would not prevent his friends from rallying round him were you to bring such a terrible accusation against him as that of his setting assassins on me."

"No, I suppose not," Leon said regretfully. "You know, Arthur, I feel more grateful to you than ever, for it is evident now that you not only saved Mercedes from death, but from marriage with a man of whose real character I was altogether ignorant. How grieved I should have been had she been tied to such a man, who would assuredly have shown himself in his true colours sooner or later!"

"Yes, she has certainly had a narrow escape, Leon, though I cannot help thinking that in any case you would have learned more of him before the marriage came off."

Leon shook his head.

"I don't see how I could. He bore a very respectable character, and indeed was thought highly of. That he should have picked a quarrel with you is not altogether unnatural in the circumstances, and really this attempt upon your life is the only thing I have against him. It is a thousand pities now that, instead of treating him as you did, you did not run him through and have done with him."

"I don't know that it has made much difference, Leon. He has, as you say, powerful friends and connections, and whereas, if he had fallen in a duel with yourself or any other noble of his own rank, they would have thought no more of the matter, they would certainly have attempted to avenge his death if I, a foreigner and a heretic, had killed him. The Church counts for a great deal, and I believe he is a very rigid Catholic; therefore the chances are that there would have been a terrible row over it, and I might have had to leave the kingdom, which, in the present circumstances, would be particularly disagreeable to me."

"Well, perhaps you are right," Leon said. "The really unfortunate part of the affair is that he should have taken it into his head to resent the fact that Mercedes did not keep to her resolution of remaining single and perhaps going into a convent."

"But you did not guarantee that she would, Leon?"

"No; but you know, in that letter that you wrote and I signed, we certainly gave him to understand that she broke on the engagement on those terms."

"Yes, that was so. But I imagine that a young lady has the right to change her mind without being called to account for it."

"Yes, that is all very well, but, you see, the gentleman has also some sort of right to resent it. Well, it is useless to say any more about it. You have let the fellows go, and whether for good or evil the matter is concluded as far as they are concerned."