"I need not say more to you, my dear doctor," hastily added the abbé, throwing the letter on the bed. "A minute's delay may lose all. Run, quick, save this unhappy young man! What! You do not move; you do not reply! What are you thinking of, my poor doctor? Why do you look at me with such a strange expression? Did you not hear what has been written to me? And it is underlined, too. 'He must go instantly, without losing a minute, to warn Captain Horace to leave his retreat.' Really, doctor, I do not understand you." "But I understand you perfectly, my dear abbé," said the doctor, with sardonic calmness. "But, upon honour, this expedient is really not up to the height of your usual inventions; you have done better than that, abbé, much better." "An expedient! My inventions!" replied the abbé, feigning amazement. "Come, doctor, you surely are not speaking seriously?" "You have forgotten, dear abbé, that an old fox like me discovers a snare from afar." "Doctor," replied the abbé, no longer able to conceal his violent anger, "you are at liberty to jest,--at liberty to let the time pass, and lose the opportunity of saving your nephew. I have warned you as a friend. Now, do as you please, I wash my hands of it." "So then, my dear abbé, you were and you are in the plot of those sanctimonious persons who desired to make a nun of Dolores Salcedo, for the purpose of getting possession of the property she would one day inherit from her uncle, the canon?" "Dolores Salcedo! Her uncle, the canon! Really, doctor, I do not know what you mean." "Ah! ah! you are in that pious plot! It is well to know it; it is always useful to recognise your adversaries, above all, when they are as clever as you are, dear abbé." "But, hear me, doctor, I swear to you--" "Stop, abbé, let us play an open game. You sent for me this morning, that the pathetic epistle you have just read to me might arrive in my presence." "Doctor!" cried the abbé, "that is carrying distrust, suspicion, to a point which becomes--which becomes--permit me to say it to you--" "Oh, by all means,--I permit you." "Well, which becomes outrageous in the last degree, doctor. Ah, truly," added the abbé, with bitterness, "I was far from expecting that my eagerness to do you a kindness would be rewarded in such a manner." "Zounds! I know very well, my poor abbé, that you hoped your ingenious stratagem would have an entirely different result." "Doctor, this is too much!" "No, abbé, it is not enough. Now, listen to me. This is what you hoped, I say, from your ingenious stratagem: Frightened by the danger to which my nephew was exposed, I would thank you effusively for the means you offered me to save him, and would fly like an arrow to warn this poor fellow to leave his place of concealment." "So, in fact, any other person in your place, doctor, would have done, but you take care not to act so reasonably. Surely, to speak the truth, you must be struck with frenzy and blindness."