"Do I understand you to mean that, knowing thoroughly who I am and that I am absolutely untouched by these matters, you yourself would be so mean a liar as to say that I am Ferdinand Carbonnell the Carlist?" I spoke with the galling sting of slow, precise deliberation; and even his practised self-restraint could not repress a start of anger nor prevent his sallow face turning pale at this thrust. But my anger had betrayed me into a bad blunder—I saw it the moment the words were out of my lips; and as he recovered himself he shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands as he faced me. It was a declaration of war from me, and as such he treated it. His tone was as level as my own—stern, official, and hard. "I know nothing of yourself or your history except what you have told me. You say you came here a few weeks since, and yet I find your name known everywhere. You rendered my sister a service, and then used it to work your way into my confidence. In that confidence I have said many things to you, which you may have used for these Carlist purposes. I gave you my confidence and my friendship because I believed all you told me. If my faith in you was wrongly placed, you have had opportunities of getting information. Things have, I know, leaked out, but I have never thought of you before in this connection. For aught I know to the contrary—for I know only what you have told me, I repeat—you may be this other Ferdinand Carbonnell." "By God, but you are a blackguard," I cried, my rage leaping quite beyond control, as I jumped to my feet. "The worst that men say of you is not half so bad as this foul conduct. Do your worst. Tell this lie if you will. Fling me into one of your gaols if you dare—and I will leave it to prove that the man who planned this act against the King, which fills you now with such honest patriotic indignation, was not Ferdinand Carbonnell, but you, Sebastian Quesada, and prove it I can under your own handwriting. Stop," I thundered, as I saw him making his way to the bell to summon assistance. "Try to bring your servants here, and I’ll fling myself on you and choke the life out of you before they can come. I have yet a word, and you’d better hear it. You wrote me a note to-day to ask me to ride with you." He started and glanced at me as I made an intentional pause. "At the same time you were writing another note giving the latest news of the young King’s movements, so that these Carlists might trap him safely. That note I received and possess; the other went to your jackal Livenza for him to make the necessary arrangements. Those notes are in safe hands, and if you dare to lay a finger on me the whole plan will be revealed—the whole truth told, with all your black treachery uppermost." His answer was more in character than any he had yet made. He turned to his table and sounded his bell vigorously; and for a few moments of tense silence we waited.