"This is not politics, Mr. Carbonnell; it is conspiracy. The child worries her pretty head from morning to night, from one week to another, with all sorts of plots and plannings—I don’t know a quarter of them—and Heaven be thanked I don’t, or I should be in my grave. And then there’s her brother. You know Ramon is really dangerous, and does awful things. I wouldn’t have him here—but then, thank Heaven, he daren’t show his face in Madrid. As if he, a young fellow, little more than a boy, silly enough to commit himself so deeply with the Carlists that he is actually compelled to keep in hiding, and fly about from place to place, always dodging the police and the soldiers, could hope to fight successfully with a powerful man like my nephew, Sebastian Quesada. I tell them both—at least, I tell Sarita, and I suppose she manages to communicate somehow with Ramon, for really she does some wonderful things—I tell them both they had much better give up all thought of trying to get back their fortune. He’ll never give up a peseta. I suppose I know my own brother’s child’s nature. I’m a Quesada—you know that, I think—and I tell them that they might as soon expect to be King and Queen of Spain as to make Sebastian disgorge what he has once got hold of. Besides, there is no need. I have plenty for them both; and who should have it, if not my dear sister’s children? At least, Ramon must really behave better if he wishes to regain my favour." Madame Chansette was as voluble as she was inconsequential, and it was not until I questioned her closely that I could get any grasp of the case. She talked to me at great length, apparently much relieved to have someone into whose ear she could pour the tale of her troubles, and on whom she thought she could lean for support in them. I could get few definite facts. Madame Chansette told me, as my father had done, that Ramon had been intended by his family for the priesthood, but had broken his vows, and had plunged into a life of dissipation, and had attempted to get a reckoning with Sebastian Quesada and recover his and Sarita’s fortune. He was a wild, passionate lad, no match for Quesada in any respect, and had been driven by his passion to make two attempts on his enemy’s life. As a result he had been proscribed, and had to live in hiding. He had then become a Carlist of the most violent kind, a veritable firebrand; moving from place to place under assumed names, and stirring up rebellion in all directions. He had also drawn his sister into his schemes, and she had so compromised herself that Madame Chansette had written in the last extremity to my father to beg him to intervene.