“And even for that you should not hate me,” he said, shaking his head on the silk pillows. “I never wished you anything but well, Juan, because you were honest and young, of noble blood, good to look upon; you had done me and my friend good service, to your own peril, when my own cousin had deserted me. And I loved you for the sake of another. I loved your sister. We have a proverb: ‘A man is always good to the eyes in which the sister hath found favour.’” I looked at him in amazement. “You loved Veronica!” I said. “But Veronica is nothing at all. There was the Señorita.” He smiled wearily. “Ah, the Señorita; she is very well; a man could love her, too. But we do not command love, my friend.” I interrupted him. “I want to know why you brought me here. Why did you ask me to come here when we were on board the _Thames?_” He answered sadly, “Ah, then! Because I loved your sister, and you reminded me always of her. But that is all over now--done with for good.... I have to address myself to dying as it becomes one of my race to die.” He smiled at me. “One must die in peace to die like a Christian. Life has treated me rather scurvily, only the gentleman must not repine like a poor man of low birth. I would like to do a good turn to the friend who is the brother of his sister, to the girl-cousin whom I do not love with love, but whom I understand with affection--to the great inheritance that is not for my wasted hands.” I looked out of the open door of the room. There was the absolutely quiet inner court of the palace, a colonnade of tall square pillars, in the centre the little thread of a fountain. Round the fountain were tangled bushes of flowers--enormous geraniums, enormous hollyhocks, a riot of orange marigolds. “How like our flowers at home!” I said mechanically. “I brought the seeds from there--from your sister’s garden,” he said. I felt horribly hipped. “But all these things tell me nothing,” I said, with an attempt towards briskness. “I have to husband my voice.” He closed his eyes. There is no saying that I did not believe him; I did, every word. I had simply been influenced by Rooks-by’s suspicions. I had made an ass of myself over that business on board the _Thames_. The passage of Carles and his faithful Tomas had been arranged for by some agent of O’Brien in London, who was in communication with Ramon and Rio Medio. The same man had engaged Nichols, that Nova Scotian mate, an unscrupulous sailor, for O’Brien’s service. He was to leave the ship in Kingston, and report himself to Ramon, who furnished him with the means to go to Cuba. That man, seeing me intimate with two persons going to Rio Medio, had got it into his head that I was going there, too. And, very naturally, he did not want an Englishman for a witness of his doings.