ould write and send letters?"

"There is no one with whom I care to communicate," he replied.

"Not even with the princess?" I asked the question idly, watching him
from between half closed lids.

"With what princess?" he asked calmly, and without a trace of surprise
or resentment in his perfectly trained countenance.

"Zara de Echeveria," I said, coldly.

"I do not know her."

"No! She knows you."

"Indeed? It is an honor to be known by a princess."

"I have it from her own lips that she is responsible for your presence
in the palace."

"Then surely there is no need to interview me on the subject." He was
thoroughly my equal in this play-of-words.

"She was told in my presence that you were dead. Would you not like to
hear what she said in reply?" I asked him.

"If you care to tell me."

"She said that it was better so; that if you lived you would have
betrayed all your friends--including her; that in fact you were more
fool than knave."

"She is not complimentary; but as I do not know her, it makes no
difference." Nothing could have been more composed than Moret's manner
was.

"You will not discuss her?"

"I would if I could, but I do not know her, monsieur."

"Well, Moret, I like your loyalty, even to one who has used you as a
mere tool, and who is now rejoiced to learn that you are dead, and out
of her way, with the dangerous secrets you possess. I am going to her
as soon as I leave you; perhaps she will talk about you again."

Moret stared at me unwinkingly, but with a countenance that was like
marble in its intensity. I knew that he was suffering, and that my
words were the cause of his agony. I knew that I was prodding him
deeply and severely, thrusting the iron into his soul with as little
compunction as a Mexican _charo_ exerts when he "cinches" a heavily
burdened _burro_. But I was doing it with malice prepense, and I was
doing it for a purpose.

I wished, somehow, to compel this man to talk freely with me about the
princess and yet all the time I was reluctant in my own soul to have
him do it. During that interval Moret was greater than I; more
chivalrous than I; for he remained loyal to his duty towards her, as he
saw it, in spite of the terrible accusation I had made against her
womanliness, and notwithstanding all the insinuations I had put
forward, respecting her utter disregard and contempt for him.

"Perhaps she will do so," he said; "that is, if she knows aught to say
of me."