hen he had asked after the health of a certain
actress, and the subject had been definitely changed.

This was a triumph. I heartily thanked Don Cipriano, all the while feeling
a guilty thing; for if I were loyal to Dick and wished him luck, I must be
disloyal and wish defeat for my benefactor.

We spoke of the road, which he knew, and said was not too bad; and about
brigands, who were making themselves talked of just then. "You'd better
buy arms, if you haven't them," said Don Cipriano; "but there's not much
danger on this side Seville."

He had brought a road-map; and we were examining it, in the reading-room
of the hotel, wondering whether Cannona would take the direct way through
Manzanares, Valdepenas, and Cordoba, or another which Don Cipriano
considered better, though longer, by Talavera de la Reina, Trujillo, and
Zafra, when the _concierge_ came to say a messenger with a parcel wished
to see me.

"It must be a mistake," I replied.

"He asked for el Teniente O'Donnel; and he has a packet for you."

"Bring it in, please, and let me see how it's addressed."

"He won't give it up, sir, without seeing you himself. Those were his
instructions."

I got up impatiently and went into the hall, where a boy in the livery of
some shop handed me a small parcel. There was no address upon it, and I
wondered if this were not some purchase of Pilar's, sent back to my care.
However, I decided to open it, and found nothing inside except a little
steel paper-knife with the word _Toledo_ engraved on the black and gold
handle.

I stared at the thing stupidly for a moment, as I fumbled for a
_pourboire_ to give the messenger, when it occurred to me that he might
explain the mystery. "Did a lady buy this?" I asked; "a young lady, with a
tall senor also young, and another middle-aged?"

"A young lady? yes, sir. But she was with only one senor, and two senoras,
both of an age."

"You saw them?"

"Yes, sir."

"Describe all four, and you shall have two pesetas instead of one."

"One senora was Spanish, brunette, fat, with dead eyes in a large, soft
face of two chins. The other was tall and foreign, handsome, but with an
air! I would not be her servant. The senor was distinguished. Dark, with a
thin nose that turned down, like his moustache; a face of an old picture;
one shoulder higher than the other."

"But the young lady?"

"Oh, sir, the senorita was a white and gold angel, made of a sunbeam! It
was she who bought the