"Sorry for what?" I asked. "If it concerns me, as it seems to, pray do not trouble. I am not of much account." "I am sorry that we used your name. Had I known what manner of man you were, nay, could I even have guessed you would ever come to Madrid, I would never have sanctioned it." "Suppose you tell me what the thing means. I am not very quick, and I confess to being very much puzzled." "It means that part of what you heard last night is quite true. Ferdinand Carbonnell is a Carlist leader—a secret leader, you understand—but held for one of the most dangerous, desperate, and capable of them all. And yet there is no Ferdinand Carbonnell in all Spain but yourself." "I don’t see that that need distress you or disturb me very seriously, whatever the puzzle may mean. A name is only a name, after all. But what is this puzzle?" "Now that I see you I know that we have wronged you," she cried, vigorously. "The weight of even that responsibility need not prevent your speaking plainly. Let me hear about it. It’s very likely I shall enjoy it as much as you have, probably, up till now—I am not exactly like other men in all respects. I’m no stickler for conventionalities." "Ferdinand Carbonnell, the Carlist leader, is really an embodiment of Ramon’s and my Carlism. Let me tell you the truth. So long as I have known that your father, Lord Glisfoyle, was my uncle—and Aunt Mercedes told me some two years ago—I have bitterly resented his conduct in ignoring us, leaving us to bear the injustice of these Quesadas, our other relatives, and treating us, his brother’s children, as though we were outcasts, pariahs, unworthy of his aristocratic recognition." "You have wronged my father, cousin. I believe he has always held it his business to know that matters were well with you." "Knowing you now, I can believe that. But I thought that some little trouble on his part, for a boy needs a man’s hand, would have made my brother’s life a far better one. We Spaniards, too, are quick to anger—and do not always stay to think. I grew to hate the names of Glisfoyle and Carbonnell; and when Ramon’s great trouble came, when his wildness drove him to seek Sebastian Quesada’s life and he failed, and was proscribed and had to take another name, he and I together chose yours—Ferdinand Carbonnell. It was Spanish enough to pass for the name of a Spaniard; and we took a delight—malicious, wrong-headed, unholy delight if you will—in building up for it a character which would at least shock the prudish sensibilities of a noble English family should they ever hear of it." "I understand, partly; but still I don’t see that it was such a very terrible matter," I added with a smile. "As I say, a name is no more than a name." I was anxious to lessen her very obvious concern; and did not in reality take the thing at all seriously. "It came within very little of being terrible, last night," she replied.