The carriage finally turned from the interminable road across the plain, which separates Segovia from La Granja, into the estate of Quitapesares, whose gates open on to the Spanish chestnut-lined avenue. When the party took a walk in the gardens in the afternoon, the Queen soon suggested some commission to Carbonell, and Arteaga was also dismissed on the plea of an umbrella being wanted from the palace. Thus designedly left alone with Muñoz, the Queen soon made known to him her royal favour. “Who is a greater prisoner than a Princess?” the Queen may have exclaimed, says Don Fermin Caballero, “for she can never descend to the honest level of an ordinary woman to show her feelings and her inclinations with the honourable liberty dictated by the noble sentiment of her heart? Why should the glitter of a crown oblige me to stifle the purest and most disinterested feelings, which must necessarily bring upon me the disdain of those of my rank and the murmurs of the multitude? Do not let my words surprise and shock you, Fernando. My young heart requires a solace for the onerous weight of my affairs. It longs for the contact of a living soul to assuage the continual pain caused by the ambition of men and their party interests. It can never be said that in search of this consolation I turned my eyes to the brilliant position of a royal personage, or to the support of any of the great captains who defend my daughter’s throne, or to the influence of any of those occupied with the cares of the State. No, modest in my aspirations, and only obedient to the impulses of my heart, I have fixed upon a modest soldier in whose sympathy I believe I can trust. Yes, Ferdinand Muñoz, nothing need restrain you from accepting the hand of the Queen-Regent of Spain, who is disposed to grant it you.” “Your hand as a wife?” asked Muñoz in astonishment. And Cristina replied: “What else do you think? Have I, like other unhappy Princesses, prostituted the throne by the caprice of a disordered appetite? Did you imagine, at the commencement of my discourse, that for the satisfaction of a voluptuous feeling I pursued gallantry to the injury of honesty? Did you think that I did not foresee from the first that religion must sanctify the bond which I desire? Is she, who was chaste and severe as the wife of Ferdinand, to be wanting in morality as his widow? My heart is only vexed that State reasons prevent my making public my modest inclinations.” The soldier knelt in gratitude and adoration before the Queen who had distinguished him in such an unmerited fashion.