"There is treachery of a kind, but not of the kind you guess. It is important that Don Eugenio should be beyond the bridge to-night. Your beasts at the Four Crowns are ready saddled. Find your friend, and help him to go with all speed." "But where shall I find him, Señorita? I have not set eyes on him for three or four days." "Yet he has done his work surely, has he not?" "Far better than I could have hoped." "You ask where he is to be found? But where else than by the Archbishop's College, near by where the French have pulled down his own College of San Lorenzo, and are destroying more? You men!" She broke out into sudden passionate contempt. "The past is all you have eyes for--the poor, wild, blundering past. You have no eyes for the present, and with the past you poison its living joy. We women cannot be always seventeen: yet because we are not, you kill us--you kill us, I say!" Then, while I stared at her in downright amaze, "Go, dress!" she cried, thrusting me into the room. "In your coat you will find two letters. That without address you will give to Don Eugenio when you find him: that which is marked with a cross you will hand to him when you shall have passed the bridge--on no account before. And now be quick, I beseech you: for this one room is all my house." Almost she thrust me within, and closed the door gently upon me. When I emerged, in my right and proper clothes, it was to find her yet waiting there upon the landing. "I thank you for your speed, Señor Don Manuel; for I, too, am in haste to change my dress: and my dress will require care to-night, since I go to a masquerade." She gave me her hand. "Farewell, friend!" she said. I found Don Eugenio behind the College of the Archbishop, seated on a mound and watching the French sappers at their work. I gave him Luisa's letter. "The wench," said he calmly, having read it, "is a born conspirator. She cannot be happy unless she has a card hidden even from her fellow-plotters. Still, it is usually safe to follow her advice. Our work is pretty thoroughly done, I fancy?" I nodded. "We will see to our beasts then." "She tells me they are ready saddled." "Saints! She is in a hurry, that girl! Ah, well, then let us go and ask no questions." We found our mare and mule, paid our reckoning, and rode forth from Salamanca. At the bridge-end we showed the passports, and were bidden to go in peace. As we climbed the hill beyond, I handed Fuentes Luisa's second letter. "She bade me deliver it here," I explained. He read it, turned in his saddle, and looked back towards the twilit sky. "A likely tale," said he, crushing the letter into his pocket. * * * * *