I had too stern a task before me in procuring Sarita’s release to give serious thought to much else. My friend was out, and I guessed I should find him at the Hotel de l’Opera; but, having changed my clothes, I sat down to think over matters before going in search of him. Affairs were in all truth in an inextricable tangle, and very little reflection convinced me that instead of unravelling them I had made them worse by the course I had adopted with Sebastian Quesada. I had committed the fatal blunder of driving him into a corner, and rendering him desperate enough to resort to any of those violent methods which Dolores had said he would certainly adopt when once his back was to the wall. It was easy to see now what I ought to have done. Belated wisdom is the curse of a fool, I thought bitterly, as I realised what my clumsy shortsighted tactlessness had achieved. What I ought to have done was to have convinced him of my power to ruin him; have told him even of my influence at the Palace; and have driven in upon him with irresistible force that it was in my power to thwart the ambition and ruin the career that were as the very breath of his nostrils to him. Having done that, I ought to have opened the door of escape by a pledge to do nothing if he would but give up Sarita. Instead of this I had driven him to desperation. I had left him under the conviction that not only could I ruin him, but that I most assuredly should do so; and had thus given him no alternative but to set his vigorous energies to work to retrieve so much of his position as was possible, and to keep for himself what he prized scarcely less than his position, and what it was already in his power to secure—the woman he loved. That he could keep Sarita from me, I could not doubt. He needed but to lift a finger to have her conveyed where I might search for her in vain; and a slight knowledge of his resourceful and implacable character was enough to convince anyone that he would act both promptly and resolutely. And I shuddered at the thought of the probable consequences to her. There was yet another distracting reflection. It was by no means certain that, even if I could wrest her from his grip, I could obtain clemency for Sarita herself. Her actions in this infernal Carlist business had been those of vigorous, bitter, and dangerous intrigue against the King; treason as subtle as it was active. She was an acknowledged leader of the Carlists; and I might be sure that Quesada for his own purposes had accumulated more than sufficient proofs of her intrigues. Great as was the obligation of the King and the Queen Regent to me, I could scarcely dare to hope they would pardon her; and hence, if I succeeded in pulling down the strong pillars at the house of Quesada’s reputation, there was too much reason to fear that when the building fell Sarita would be crushed in the ruins.