“As I have heard that the Margaret had a prosperous voyage, Señor Castell. Rumour, as I said but now, is a lying jade. Yet I will not copy her. I have been no saint. Now I would become one, for Margaret’s sake. I will be true to your daughter, Señor. What say you now?” Castell only shook his head. “Listen,” went on d’Aguilar. “I am more than I seem to be; she who weds me will not lack for rank and titles.” “Yes, you are the Marquis de Morella, the reputed son of Prince Carlos of Viana by a Moorish mother, and therefore nephew to his Majesty of Spain.” d’Aguilar looked at him, then bowed and said: “Your information is good—as good as mine, almost. Doubtless you do not like that bar in the blood. Well, if it were not there, I should be where Ferdinand is, should I not? So I do not like it either, though it is good blood and ancient—that of those high-bred Moors. Now, may not the nephew of a king and the son of a princess of Granada be fit to mate with the daughter of—a Jew, yes, a Marano, and of a Christian English lady, of good family, but no more?” Castell lifted his hand as though to speak; but d’Aguilar went on: “Deny it not, friend; it is not worth while here in private. Was there not a certain Isaac of Toledo who, hard on fifty years ago, left Spain, for his own reasons, with a little son, and in London became known as Joseph Castell, having, with his son, been baptized into the Holy Church? Ah! you see you are not the only one who studies genealogies.” “Well, Señor, if so, what of it?” “What of it? Nothing at all, friend Castell. It is an old story, is it not, and, as that Isaac is long dead and his son has been a good Christian for nearly fifty years and had a Christian wife and child, who will trouble himself about such a matter? If he were openly a Hebrew now, or worse still, if pretending to be a Christian, he in secret practised the rites of the accursed Jews, why then——” “Then what?” “Then, of course, he would be expelled this land, where no Jew may live, his wealth would be forfeit to its king, whose ward his daughter would become, to be given in marriage where he willed, while he himself, being Spanish born, might perhaps be handed over to the power of Spain, there to make answer to these charges. But we wander to strange matters. Is that alliance still impossible, Señor?” Castell looked him straight in the eyes and answered: “Yes.” There was something so bold and direct in his utterance of the word that for a moment d’Aguilar seemed to be taken aback. He had not expected this sharp denial. “It would be courteous to give a reason,” he said presently. “The reason is simple, Marquis. My daughter is already betrothed, and will ere long be wedded.” d’Aguilar did not seem surprised at this intelligence.