‘What are you doing here, señor?’ Sir John did not answer at once. They were walking leisurely. The streets were deserted, as indeed the streets of Toledo usually are. ‘I am putting two and two together,’ the great lawyer answered at length. ‘I began doing so in idleness, and now I have become interested.’ ‘Ah!’ ‘Yes. I have become interested. They say, Padre, that a pebble set in motion at the summit of a mountain may gather other pebbles and increase in bulk and speed until, in the form of an avalanche, it overwhelms a city in the valley.’ ‘Yes, señor.’ ‘And I have conceived the strange fancy that Frederick Conyngham, when he first came to this country, set such a pebble in motion at the summit of a very high mountain. It has been falling and falling silently ever since, and it is gaining in bulk. And you, and General Vincente, and Estella Vincente, and Señorita Barenna, and Frederick Conyngham, and in a minor degree myself, are on the slope in the track of the avalanche, and are sliding down behind it. And the General and Estella, and yourself and Conyngham, are trying to overtake it and stop it. And, reverendo, in the valley below is the monarchy of Spain—the Bourbon cause.’ Father Concha, remembering his favourite maxim that no flies enter a shut mouth, was silent. ‘The pebble was a letter,’ said Sir John. ‘And Larralde has it,’ he added after a pause. ‘And that is why you are all in Toledo—why the air is thick with apprehension, and why all Spain seems to pause and wait breathlessly. Will the avalanche be stopped, or will it not? Will the Bourbons—than whom history has known no more interesting and more unsatisfactory race, except our own Stuarts—will the Bourbons fall, Señor Padre?’ ‘Ah!’ said Concha, whose furrowed face and pessimistic glance betrayed nothing. ‘Ah!’ ‘You will not tell me, of course. You know much that you will not tell me, and I merely ask you from curiosity. You perhaps know one thing, and that I wish to learn from you—not out of curiosity, but because I, too, would fain overtake the avalanche and stop it. I am no politician, señor, though of course I have my views. When a man has reached my age, he knows assuredly that politics merely mean self-aggrandisement, and nothing else. No—the Bourbons may fall; Spain may follow the lead of France and make an exhibition of herself before the world as a Republic. I am indifferent to these events. But I wish to do Frederick Conyngham a good turn, and I ask you to tell me where I shall find Larralde—you who know everything, Señor Padre.’