ct, but rising, said courteously, "You
will excuse me for the present. You know the library. You will find my
Father-Confessor there, whom I think you have met. There are also works
on travel and lives of the saints in various languages, exceedingly
improving to the mind. And above all you must dine with me to-night."

Thus the Abbot, with a kindness which Rollo felt deeply, put off hearing
the full story of his adventures till the evening. Dinner was served in
the Prior's own chamber as before, but on this occasion much more
simply--indeed rather as two gentlemen might have dined at a good inn
where their arrival had been expected and prepared for.

Rollo's simple heart was opened by the hospitality shown him. The
beaming and paternal graciousness of Don Baltasar, the difference
between what he had expected and what he found, wrung his soul with
remorse for the message he had to deliver.

At last he was permitted to tell his tale, which he did from the
beginning, slurring only such matters as concerned his relations with
Concha. And at the end of each portion of his story the Abbot raised a
finger and said smilingly to his Father-Confessor, who stood gloomily
silent in the arch of the doorway, "A marvel--a wonder! You hear, Father
Anselmo?"

And without stirring a muscle of his immovable countenance the
ex-inquisitor answered, "I have heard, my Lord Abbot."

Then Rollo told of the plague and the strange things that had happened
at La Granja, their setting out thence with the Queen-Regent and the
little Princess, their safe arrival upon the spurs of Moncayo, almost
indeed at the camp of General Elio. Then, with his head for the first
time hanging down, he narrated the meeting with Cabrera, and that
General's determination to murder the Queen-Regent and her little
daughter.

"Abominations such as that no man could endure," said Rollo more than
once as he proceeded to tell the tale of their delivery, of how he had
despatched mother and daughter to the camp of General Elio, of their
subsequent capture by Espartero, and how he, Rollo Blair, had hastened
all the way from Madrid to lay the whole matter before the Prior.

"'Tis a marvellous tale, indeed, that our young friend tells--have you
missed nothing?" inquired the Abbot of the Father-Confessor.

"Nothing!" said the Confessor, glaring down upon Rollo as a vulture
might upon a weakly lamb on the meadows of Estramadura, "not one single
word hath escaped me!"

Th