Like a drowning man stretching forth to a straw, Montoro had snatched at a false hope. With that low, mocking laugh that issued freely enough from his thin, cruel lips, the Italian said slowly: "Ah! your wish is very great, my Señor, I see that--truly very great to save a heart-ache to your bride. But--see you--you have hindered Jerome Tivoli of his desire, and now it is his turn, the turn of the 'base, black-hearted villain,' Jerome. And he takes your desire into his ears, he tastes it on his palate, it is sweet to him, sweetened with the thought of revenge, and then--he spurns it--spits it forth from him--thus!" The Aragonese tore his rapier from its sheath, and darted forward, his fierce southern blood aflame with fury at the insult. But his companion stood there coolly with folded arms, content to hiss between his teeth: "We are not unwatched, my Señor. I have plenty to avenge me if you think Doña Rachel will be gratified to lose husband now as well as father." The mention of his wife was opportune. It restored Don Diego to his self-control. With a mighty effort mastering his pride, he collected his thoughts for one final attempt on behalf of the good old man doomed so tyrannically to an awful death. Before seeking this second interview with the foreigner Montoro de Diego had schooled himself to bear everything for the sake of his one great object, and although for a moment he had allowed self to rise uppermost, he now once more crushed it down, and returned to the attitude of the humble suppliant. He did not indeed repeat the offer, so insultingly rejected, to kneel to the informer, but he appealed earnestly to more sordid instincts. The man had alluded to Don Philip's daughter as rich as well as beautiful, and he now offered him the heiress's wealth as compensation for the loss of the heiress herself. As he spoke a sudden gleam of satisfaction shot into the Italian's eyes, and a second time a hope, far greater than the first, rose in the petitioner's heart; but yet again it was dashed to the ground. Just as he was prepared to hear that his terms were agreed upon, his companion's countenance underwent a sudden change. A shadow had just fallen across the floor, and with a heavy scowl replacing the expression of greed he bent forward with the hasty mutter: "Fool of a Spaniard, has that idiot tongue of thine but one tone, that thou must needs screech thy offers, like a parrot from the Indies, into all ears that choose to listen?" Then aloud, as though in continuation of a widely-different theme: "And so, as I tell thee, thy offers go for nought, for the wealth will of right flow into the coffers of the Sacred Office when the accursed Jew shall have suffered in the flesh to save his soul. And now," insolently, "I have no more time to listen to thy prating, and so go."