ow that she has made herself
mistress of his body and soul, and all he has. The worse his actions are,
the more certain she feels that people will talk of her, and that is all
she wants. Her obligations to me are beyond counting, for she owes me
all, even to her existence, and instead of continuing my husband in her
service she has sent him about his business."

"Then I wonder how she came to treat me so generously."

"If you knew all, you would not feel grateful to her."

"Tell me all, then."

"She only paid for your keep at the inn and in prison to make people
believe you were her lover, and to shame the count. All Barcelona knows
that you were assassinated at her door, and that you were fortunate
enough to run the fellow through."

"But she cannot have been the instigator of, or even the accomplice in,
the plot for my assassination. That's against nature."

"I dare say, but everything in Nina is against nature. What I tell you is
the bare truth, for I was a witness of it all. Whenever the viceroy
visited her she wearied him with praise of your gallantry, your wit, your
noble actions, comparing you with the Spaniards, greatly to their
disadvantage.

"The count got impatient and told her to talk of something else, but she
would not; and at last he went away, cursing your name. Two days before
you came to grief he left her, saying,--

"'Valga me Dios! I will give you a pleasure you do not expect.'

"I assure you that when we heard the pistol-shot after you had gone, she
remarked, without evincing the slightest emotion, that the shot was the
pleasure her rascally Spaniard had promised her.

"I said that you might be killed.

"'All the worse for the count,' she replied, 'for his turn will come
also.'

"Then she began laughing like a madcap; she was thinking of the
excitement your death would cause in Barcelona.

"At eight o'clock the following day, your man came and told her that you
had been taken to the citadel; and I will say it to her credit, she
seemed relieved to hear you were alive."

"My man--I did not know that he was in correspondence with her."

"No, I suppose not; but I assure you the worthy man was very much
attached to you."

"I am sure he was. Go on."

"Nina then wrote a note to your landlord. She did not shew it me, but it
no doubt contained instructions to supply you with everything.

"The man told us that he had seen your sword all red with blood, and that
your cloak had a bullet h