The unctuous priest stole away. Moreno watched his departure with a contemptuous smile. He did not seem a very valiant member of the church militant. Moreno joined his companions. He addressed them in his usual easy fashion. "Couldn't get much out of him. I should say he was quite a harmless old chap, full of good works. He seemed very concerned that I should be drinking at a place like the `Concha.' He gave me some very good advice. I don't think he has brains enough to be a spy." The other two men laughed. Moreno had carried the affair off so well that they believed him implicitly. Then Alvedero spoke seriously. "This affair of Guy Rossett was very pressing." He turned to Moreno and Violet Hargrave. "I daresay you know that Lucue has delegated this matter to me, as being on the spot." The two members of this conclave of four bowed; they had gathered this much before they left England. "Yesterday, however, I had instructions from our great leader, Contraras," pursued Alvedero; he uttered the name of his chief in accents of profound reverence. "The affair of Guy Rossett has, for the moment, sunk into comparative insignificance. There is bigger game afoot." "Ah!" breathed Moreno eagerly. True to his histrionic instinct, he was playing the role of enthusiast very well. Violet Hargrave, who was never very enthusiastic, thought it well to imitate him, and leaned forward as if eager to catch the next words from the great man's lips. Alvedero spoke slowly. "As you know, in difficult times, we have to proceed with great caution--I cannot divulge all that Contraras has entrusted me with to-day. To-morrow Valerie Delmonte will be over here! We will meet at the same place and the same hour." He paused, and then lifted his hands to the low roof of the mean sitting-room in which the four were assembled. "The brain of that man is stupendous, gigantic," he cried, in tones of the deepest admiration. "My friends, he has planned a great _coup_, and Valerie Delmonte is going to carry it out! She is devoted, she is fearless, she will not blench. To-morrow at this hour and this place I will take you into the secret; it is possible one of you may be called upon to assist." A few minutes later the meeting broke up. There would be an exciting day to-morrow, thought Moreno, as he strolled away. CHAPTER TEN. If Lord Saxham had been, in his heart, disappointed that he could not induce Isobel to cajole her lover away from his post, he was too much a gentleman to go back on his word. Besides, he recognised that in this instance the girl was right, and he wrong, that she had displayed a nobility of spirit which was lacking in himself and his daughter.