"Proofs? The proofs are written all over Spain at this moment. Am I not here? Is not that a proof? Why was I at Daroca before you thought of coming? Why, except that he allowed you all to fool yourselves with the belief that your stronghold here was not known to the Government, and that you yourself would be sure to fly here when the trouble fell upon your friends at Madrid? But if you want proofs, they exist not by the hundred only, but by the thousand, in the orders given to every regiment of soldiers and every body of police. There is no hope for you, Sarita, but surrender. You cannot fight a man like Sebastian Quesada." Then I saw the reason of his earnestness, which for the moment had puzzled me. He was bent upon getting her to renounce Carlism and upon filling her with hate of Quesada, that she might the more easily be pardoned and given to him as his wife. He could not have rendered me more effective aid, indeed, had I prompted him in every word he said. And then I went on to play the last card I had in reserve. "You were in Quesada’s confidence, you tell us, and it is plain that you were to some extent, for he was going to help you in winning a wife. Did he ever tell you his own intentions in regard to marriage?" Sarita started and looked at me hurriedly, but I would not see the glance. "They were nothing to me." "You have told us how these Carlists were outmanoeuvred and duped by him; do you think there were no dupes among those nearer to him?" And I spoke with an emphasis that impressed him. "What do you mean?" "Do you know that he himself also thought of marrying a Carlist, one high in their councils, and that he made the price of his collusion in this abduction plot a pledge from her to marry him?" I had not miscalculated the effect of the stroke. Poltroon as the fellow was in the abject regard for his life, he was a true Spaniard in his love and his hate; and the jealousy in his nature was a devil that could be roused easily. It put new strength into him now, and he sprang to his feet again and glared across the table at me with eyes of fire. "Do you mean I was his dupe in this? By the living Cross if I thought that——" "Ask the Senorita Castelar the name. She can tell you." "Is this true, Sarita? Can you tell me?" There was a pause of tense silence, and then she answered with slow deliberation: "After what you have told us of his falseness, there is no reason why I should not say. I was to be his wife." He stood glaring, at her like a man stiffened suddenly in the rigidity of death, save that his eyes glowed like coals; and for a full minute he seemed scarcely to breathe, so unnatural was his stillness. Then with a deep-drawn sigh which shook the whole frame till he trembled, and I thought would fall, he regained self-mastery. "On your honour, and by the Holy Virgin, you swear that is true?" he said, in a tone ringing with suppressed passion until it sounded utterly unlike his own.