And what plan was being broached around the corner of the ell by her men and Francis Morgan? Her mind strayed on, deaf to the suitor at her feet. Francis! Ah—she almost sighed, and marveled, what of her self-known love for Henry, why this stranger Gringo so enamored her heart. Was she a wanton? Was it one man? Or another man? Or any man? No! No! She was not fickle nor unfaithful. And yet?... Perhaps it was because Francis and Henry were so much alike, and her poor stupid loving woman’s heart failed properly to distinguish between them. And yet—while it had seemed she would have followed Henry anywhere over the world, in any luck or fortune, it seemed to her now that she would follow Francis even farther. She did _love_ Henry, her heart solemnly proclaimed. But also did she love Francis, and almost did she divine that Francis loved her—the fervor of his lips on hers in his prison cell was inerasable; and there was a difference in her love for the two men that confuted her powers of reason and almost drove her to the shameful conclusion that she, the latest and only woman of the house of Solano, was a wanton. A severe pinch of her flesh against Henry’s ring, caused by the impassioned grasp of Torres, brought her back to him, so that she could hear the spate of his speech pouring on: “You have been the delicious thorn in my side, the spiked rowel of the spur forever prodding the sweetest and most poignant pangs of love into my breast. I have dreamed of you ... and for you. And I have my own name for you. Ever the one name I have had for you: the Queen of my Dreams. And you will marry me, my Leoncia. We will forget this mad Gringo who is as already dead. I shall be gentle, kind. I shall love you always. And never shall any vision of him arise between us. For myself, I shall not permit it. For you ... I shall love you so that it will be impossible for the memory of him to arise between us and give you one moment’s heart-hurt.” Leoncia debated in a long pause that added fuel to Torres’ hopes. She felt the need to temporise. If Henry were to be saved ... and had not Torres offered his services? Not lightly could she turn him away when a man’s life might depend upon him. “Speak!—I am consuming!” Torres urged in a choking voice. “Hush! Hush!” she said softly. “How can I listen to love from a live man, when the man I loved is yet alive?”