the only means that are open to me to fulfil my orders, and to induce
your Highness to place yourself in safety."

"And pray," cried Maria Cristina, indignantly, "from whom can you have
orders to place a Queen of Spain in restraint?"

In a moment Rollo realised that it was impossible for him to reveal his
position as an officer of the Carlist armies, but a fortunate
remembrance of some words dropped by the Abbot of Montblanch instantly
gave him his cue.

"I act," he said calmly, "under the immediate direction of the Holy
Father himself, at whose feet, in the Vatican of Rome, you shall one day
kneel to ask pardon of your sins."

This unexpected reply seemed to agitate the Queen-Regent, who, though
forced to create herself a party out of the men of liberal opinions in
her realm, was at heart, like all the Bourbons, a convinced and even
bigoted religionist. But Munoz, who had hitherto been silent, stooped
and whispered something in her ear.

"How am I to be convinced of that?" she cried, turning on him fiercely.
"I will not believe it even from you!"

"I regret," said Rollo, "that your Highness must be compelled to believe
it. Pray do me the honour of following my argument. The Holy Father
judges it necessary for the peace of this realm, and your own soul's
profit, that you should be placed in a situation where you may be able
to act more in accordance with what he knows to be your secret desires
for the welfare of the Church of which he is God's vicegerent on earth."

Rollo was glad to reflect that, in uttering these words, he was only
repeating the sonorous phrases of Don Baltazar Varela when the Abbot
delivered him his commission in his own chamber at Montblanch. He added
of his own accord a little prayer to the recording angel that he might
be guilty of no blasphemy in thus acting at second hand as an emissary
of Holy Church. After all, it was entirely the Abbot's affair, and Rollo
was anxious that it should so be understood above.

But the lady chiefly concerned continued obdurate. She would not budge
an inch. She professed an absolute certainty that her guard would appear
in a few hours, and with them her Father-Confessor, who would inform her
how to reply to any genuine and authentic message from his Holiness
Gregory the Sixteenth. Further than that she could not be moved.

"In that case," said the young man, "I will not conceal it from your
Highness that considerable discretion has been granted to me. You