To his surprise and relief the viscount found the bed empty and the Abbot throned upon one of the high-backed chairs. But his fears returned when a lay-brother set eight candles, in a bronze candelabrum, upon the painted table. By their light he saw a face which seemed to gaze on him from beyond the grave. To the old man's right and left stood the Prior and Father Isidore, supporting him. They had vested the Abbot in a cope stiff with gold embroidery, and they had placed his miter on his head and his crozier in his hand. The captain paused in the doorway, embarrassed. Then he ducked his head and crooked his knee in awkward obeisance and blurted out, "Your Reverence, here is the Senhor Visconde." "To what noble Visconde am I speaking?" asked the Abbot. The civilian recovered himself and answered proudly: "Your Excellency is speaking to the Visconde de Ponte Quebrada." "I thought I knew all the titulars of Portugal," the Abbot returned in his small, clear tones, "but I do not know the Viscondes of Ponte Quebrada." The Visconde was nettled, but he held his chin high and retorted: "It is a new creation. I am the first Visconde. I am proud to say I have won the title by my own merits, and not merely because I am my father's son." "Your Excellency has commanded in action?" the Abbot asked. "No doubt Ponte Quebrada was the scene of a battle--a victory?" "Your most reverend Lordship is wrong," interrupted the captain. "The illustrious Visconde has served her majesty in other ways. To hire the English transports for Belle Isle and the Açores meant money. To pay the French and Belgian and English officers and men at Oporto meant more money. The English Admiral Napier, who destroyed the Miguelista fleet, required still more money. Money was hard to find: but the noble Visconde had powerful friends in London. He knows the Senhor Rothschild, that clever man who kept back from the English the news of Waterloo while he made his own fortune in the Funds. The Visconde helped to find the money." "At what rate of interest?" asked the Abbot quietly. And when the officer only shrugged his shoulders he added, "Is the noble Visconde a born Portuguese?" The Viscount boiled over with rage. "I have not come here to be cross-examined and insulted," he cried, "I am here to execute a decree of the Government. This monastery is suppressed." "I am told the Government has sent a strong force of soldiers," the Abbot answered. "Why? Because the Government fears we may tear the decree to pieces. I have not questioned your Excellency out of idle curiosity. I am the father of this family; I am responsible for their little patrimony; and when I go to stand, as go I so soon must, before my Lord, I must not go as an unfaithful steward." "The monastery is suppressed," the Viscount repeated.