val of the Duke and Duchess, a calamity which did not happen in the
high season once in ten years. If the house (which had in these days but
one grand suite of furnished and habitable rooms) was occupied by its
owners, it was usually for a few weeks in the height of summer, after
strangers had ceased to come south; or else in the autumn, before the time
for travellers. Now there was great dissatisfaction among the foreign
visitors, who considered themselves defrauded of their rights. Yesterday
morning several parties of tourists had insisted upon an entrance, and in
the afternoon, in fulfilment of the Duke's request, two civil guards had
been stationed before the door to keep would-be intruders at a distance.

This did not seem a hopeful outlook for me, in case I wished to try some
such _coup d'etat_ as I had planned in Seville. But there would be other
ways of reaching Monica, I told myself, when the landlord had gone on to
say that the Duke was supposed to be seriously ill. If Carmona were
suffering, he would not be able to watch the members of his household as
closely as before, and it ought not to be impossible to let Monica know
that I was in Granada. Once she understood that I was ready and waiting to
take her away, means would be found to reach her.

There was only time, when Dick had finally decided to go, for a bath and
breakfast before I spun him down to the station for the morning train.

Meanwhile I had learned that every room in our landlord's two hotels was
occupied, for it was the most crowded season. But I was to have a villa
belonging to the hotels given to me for my entire use, a villa in an old
Moorish garden of tinkling fountains, flowing rills, rose-entwined
miradores, jasmine arbours, myrtle hedges, and magnolia trees. The Carmen
de Mata Moros was to be mine for as few days or as many weeks as I chose
to remain. Satisfied, therefore, that I should not have to camp under the
trees of the park, I determined, when I had seen Dick off, to put up the
car in the town of Granada, and reconnoitre the neighbourhood of the
Carmona palace.

An inquiry here and there took me to the street without much delay. The
palace, sacred to memories of Boabdil, his gentle Sultana Zorayda, and his
stern mother Ayxa, was to be found on the outskirts of the Albaicin, that
part of Granada once favoured by the Moorish aristocracy, now almost given
up to the poorer Spaniards, and gypsies rich enough and sophisticated
enough