"It was quite an accident; just the similarity of name. We were chatting, and he said, casually, 'I suppose that you have no relatives at Oporto,' and I at once said I had, for fortunately my father had been telling me about your father and you, the last time I saw him, that is four months ago. He was badly wounded at Vimiera and invalided home. Then Captain Travers told me about getting your letter and what was in it, and I felt sure that it was you, and of course made up my mind to do what I could to get you out, though at the time I did not think that I should be in Oporto until I entered with the British army." "But I cannot think how you got us all to start, and walked along with the lady superior as if you were a friend of hers. Macwitty had not time to tell me that. I was so frightened and bewildered with the dreadful noise and the strangeness of it all that I could not ask him many questions." "It was by virtue of this ring," he said, holding up his hand. "Why," she exclaimed in surprise, "that is the bishop's! I noticed it on his finger when he came one day to me and scolded me, and said that I should remain a prisoner if it was for years until my obstinate spirit was broken. But how did you get it?" "Not with the bishop's good-will, you may be sure, Mary," Terence laughed; and he then told her how he had become possessed of it. The girl looked quite scared. "It sounds dreadful, doesn't it, Mary, to think that I should have laid hands upon a bishop, and such a bishop, a man who regards himself as the greatest in Portugal. However, there was no other way of getting the ring, and I could not see how, without it, I could persuade the lady superior to leave her convent with you all; and to tell you the truth, I would rather have got it that way than any other. The bishop is, in my opinion, a man who deserves no respect. He has terrorized all the north of Portugal, has caused scores of better men than himself to be imprisoned or put to death, and has now by his folly and ignorance cost the lives of no one knows how many thousand men, and brought about the sack of Oporto." "Did you hear anything of my mother?" the girl asked. "No; my Portuguese was not good enough for me to ask questions without risking being detected as a foreigner at once. She has behaved shamefully to you, Mary."