‘Be careful, that it is enough,’ he suggested. ‘Keep your grand airs for your fellows, Señor Larralde. Yes, I am about to offer you two hundred pounds—say three thousand pesetas—for the loan of that letter for a few hours only. I will guarantee that it is read by one person only, and that a lady. This lady will probably glance at the first lines, merely to satisfy herself as to the nature of its contents. Three thousand pesetas will enable you to escape to Cuba if your schemes fail. If you succeed, three thousand pesetas will always be of use, even to a member of a Republican Government.’ Larralde reflected. He had lately realised the fact that the Carlist cause was doomed. There is a time in the schemes of men, and it usually comes just before the crisis, when the stoutest heart hesitates and the most reckless conspirator thinks of his retreat. Esteban Larralde had begun to think of Cuba during the last few days, and the mention of that haven for Spanish failures almost unnerved him. ‘In a week,’ suggested Sir John again, ‘it may be—well—settled one way or the other.’ Larralde glanced at him sharply. This Englishman was either well-informed or very cunning. He seemed to have read the thought in Larralde’s mind. ‘No doubt,’ went on the Englishman, ‘you have divined for whom I want the letter and who will read it. We have both mistaken our man. We both owe Conyngham a good turn—I, in reparation, you, in gratitude; for he undoubtedly saved the Señorita Barenna from imprisonment for life.’ Larralde shrugged his shoulders. ‘Each man,’ he said, ‘must fight for himself.’ ‘And the majority of us for a woman as well,’ amended Sir John. ‘At least, in Spain, chivalry is not dead.’ Larralde laughed. He was vain, and Sir John knew it. He had a keen sight for the breach in his opponent’s armour. ‘You have put your case well,’ said the Spaniard patronisingly, ‘and I do not see why, at the end of a week, I should not agree to your proposal. It is, as you say, for the sake of a woman.’ ‘Precisely.’ Larralde leant back in his chair, remembering the legendary gallantry of his race, and wearing an appropriate expression. ‘For a woman,’ he repeated with an eloquent gesture. ‘Precisely.’ ‘Then I will do it, señor. I will do it.’ ‘For two hundred pounds?’ inquired Sir John coldly. ‘As you will,’ answered the Spaniard, with a noble indifference to such sordid matters. CHAPTER XXIV PRIESTCRAFT ‘No man I fear can effect great benefits for his country without some sacrifice of the minor virtues.’ THE Señora Barenna was a leading social light in Toledo, insomuch as she never refused an invitation. ‘One has one’s duties towards society,’ she would say with a sigh. ‘Though the saints know that I take no pleasure in these affairs.’ Then she put on her best Seville mantilla and bustled off to some function or another, where she talked volubly and without discretion.