“Don’t question me. I cannot tell you. I would if I might--I am sure you know that. But I cannot.” “Who told you I was coming?” She shook her head again, growing more and more distressed. “Don’t offer it to me even. I must take it if you do but must not read it.” I sat thinking a moment. I was almost dumbfounded by this sudden check at the moment when I had been so full of confidence. I had hoped that the instant she saw the letter she would see that the barrier between us was swept away for good. And now she would not even look at it. She dared not, just as Sampayo had not dared to write the letter to the visconte. Was there any connexion between her fear and his? Was this further evidence of that mysterious power in the background? “Very well,” I said at length; and at the words the expression of her eyes changed. But there are more ways than one of gaining an end, and I was resolved she should know the contents of the letter before I left; and once more I pressed those Beira concessions into my service. I chatted at random for a while and then spoke of them. “You’ll be glad to hear that I am getting along all right in that matter,” I said in a casual tone. “I am glad if it will mean that you will be able to leave Lisbon,” she replied, a little suspicious as to which concessions I meant. I said a lot about Beira and the colony until I had cleared the doubt from her eyes. “I’ll tell you how the matter stands,” I said then, and added quickly, not heeding her attempts to interrupt me: “There was a man here who tried to forestall me by using secret means he possessed to force others, and to-day I have seen him and he has given me a letter definitely renouncing his claims and by to-morrow he will have left Lisbon for good.” She understood, but instead of showing relief or pleasure, her eyes clouded again with trouble, and she sat with drooped head biting her lip and pressing her hands tightly together in agitation. “Have you no word of--of congratulation?” Her congratulation was a deep sigh, a gesture of despair, and a scarcely audible whisper: “It is too late.” “No!” I exclaimed firmly. “I don’t and won’t believe that. And I hold too strong a hand now for any one to beat me.” My firmness told. She looked up with the dawn of hope in her eyes, and if I could read it, something beside hope, something far dearer to me. “My hand on it,” I said, stretching it out. She was about to place hers in it, when the servant announced Inez. On watchdog duty again, of course. I gave her the letter and whispered quickly: “Take this now. You know what is in it. I have other news for you--I have rescued Vasco.” CHAPTER XVI BAROSA’S SECRET I stayed a few minutes after Inez’ arrival so that she should not think she had scared me away, and I left the house more in love with Miralda than ever and convinced that had she been free the interview would have had a very different result.