d-eyed oxen our
automobile frightened. At Biarritz and beyond they were pale
biscuit-coloured; here, the sun seemed to have baked them to a richer
brown.

Nevertheless, that sun had no warm welcome for us to-day. We were nipped
by the bitter wind, which struck us the more coldly as we were hungry; and
about two o'clock we were not sorry to see in the middle of a
wide-stretching plain, the Concha de Alava--a large town which we knew to
be Vitoria.

Luncheon there might be counted upon. It was too chilly for a picnic meal
to be feasible with ladies, therefore Carmona's car must stop for an hour
or two, and it was clear now that he would go by way of Burgos;
consequently, it was on the cards that Angele de la Mole's letter would be
delivered by hand.

We sneaked stealthily into Vitoria, glancing furtively about for a large
grey Lecomte; but it was not long before we caught sight of it in the
distance, in the main street, and drawn up before the principal hotel.

I would have given a good deal if I could have got word to Monica; for,
even if she had happened to see the red car following since Irun, she was
probably miserable in the thought that I had been turned back at the door
of Spain.

Of course, in the fear of disgusting her, Carmona might have kept the
curtain down on the little drama which he had stage-managed. Concealment
would have been difficult, however, as he must have signed his telegram to
the police; and on arriving at the custom-house, some of the facts would
have been liable to leak out in Monica's hearing.

It was hard that she should be distressed for my sake as well as her own;
but my first fencing bout with the Duke had warned me against rashness,
and I decided that nothing could be done till we reached Burgos. There,
somehow, I would find a way to let her know that it was I, and not the
Duke, who had come out best.

Before joining Dick at lunch I engaged a small boy who sold newspapers in
the street to let us know when the other car started. This was to prevent
our being given the slip by any chance; but it proved a needless
precaution, as we scrambled through a Spanish menu, and still the grey car
slept in its coat of greyer mud before its chosen hotel; therefore Dick
and I bolted a hasty impression of Vitoria, as we had bolted our lunch.

He read aloud as we walked, bits out of a guide-book about Wellington, and
King Joseph, and the battle of Vitoria that had decided the fate of the
Peninsu