"I told Uncle Philip as soon as we got home. Of course he was very angry, but I don't think he took me seriously. He just said it didn't make any difference--that whether I liked it or not I should have to be married, so I had better get used to the idea as quickly as possible." Tony nodded his head thoughtfully. "It all fits in perfectly except one thing," he said. "I can't quite see what your uncle and Da Freitas hope to get out of it. They must both have some notion at the back of their beautiful heads." "That's what I don't understand," said Isabel in a puzzled voice. "Anyhow it's all their arrangement. Pedro doesn't want to marry me really--not a little bit. He is only doing it because Da Freitas tells him to." She hesitated. "If it hadn't been for that I couldn't have stood it as long as I did." "How long was it?" asked Tony sympathetically. "Just three weeks. The day after that first dinner Da Freitas came over again, and made a sort of formal proposal. I told him quite plainly I wouldn't, but it didn't make any difference. Uncle Philip declared that I was shy, and didn't know what I was talking about, and Da Freitas said in his horrid oily way that he was quite sure when I got to know Pedro better I would love him as much as he loved me. I saw it was no good saying anything else, so I just made up my mind I would run away." Tony looked at her approvingly. "You are extraordinarily practical," he said, "for the daughter of an exiled monarch." "There was nothing else to do," replied Isabel; "but it wasn't easy. You see I had no money and Uncle never let me go out alone. Wherever I went I always had Suzanne the old Frenchwoman with me. The only person I could think of who might be able to help me was Miss Watson. When she left she had given me her address in London, and I knew she would do anything she could because she hated Uncle Philip almost as much as I did. I wrote her a little note and carried it about with me in my dress for days, but I never got a chance to post it. Well, things went on like that till last Monday. I was feeling hateful, because Pedro had been to dinner the night before, and I think he'd had too much to drink. Anyhow he had wanted to kiss me afterwards, and there had been a frightful row, and everyone had been perfectly horrid to me. In the morning Uncle started again. He told me that he and the Marquis da Freitas had decided to put a stop to what he called my 'nonsense,' and that they were making arrangements for me and Pedro to be married immediately. I felt miserable, but I wasn't going to argue any more about it, so I just said nothing. He went over there about half-past six in the evening and I was left alone in the house with Suzanne. They wouldn't trust me to be by myself at all, except at night, when I was always locked in my bedroom." She stopped to push back a rebellious copper-coloured curl which had temporarily escaped over her forehead.