dard was this, that she had purged
herself by open confession to the man whom she loved. She was clean,
sweetened and full of heart. All she had to do was to open wide her
house that holiness might enter in.

Besides this she had, at the moment, the consciousness of a good
action; for she firmly believed that by her surrender to the law she
had again saved Manvers from assassination. If Don Luis could only
cleanse his honour by blood, he now had her heart's blood. That should
suffice him. She grew happier as the days went on.

Meanwhile it was remarked upon by Mercedes and Dolores, and half a
dozen more, that distinguished strangers came to the gallery of the
chapel. The outlines of them could be descried through the _grille_;
for behind the _grille_ was a great white window which threw them into
high relief.

It was the fixed opinion of Mercedes and Dolores that Manuela had a
_novio_.

CHAPTER XVII

THE NOVIO

It is true that Manvers had gone to the Chapel of the Recogidas to look
for, or to look at, Manuela. This formed the one amusing episode in
his week's round in Madrid, where otherwise he was extremely bored, and
where he only remained to give Don Luis a chance of waging his war.

To be shot at in the street, or stabbed in the back as you are homing
through the dusk are, to be sure, not everybody's amusements, and in an
ordinary way they were not those of Mr. Manvers. But he found that his
life gained a zest by being threatened with deprivation, and so long as
that zest lasted he was willing to oblige Don Luis. The weather was
insufferably hot, one could only be abroad early in the morning or late
at night--both the perfection of seasons for the assassin's game.

Yet nothing very serious had occurred during the week following the
declaration of war. Gil Perez could not find Tormillo, and had to
declare that his suspicions of a Manchegan teamster, who had jostled
his master in the Puerta del Sol and made as if to draw his knife, were
without foundation. What satisfied him was that the Manchegan, that
same evening, stabbed somebody else to death. "That show 'e is good
fellow--too much after 'is enemy," said Gil Perez affably. So Manvers
felt justified in his refusal to wear mail or carry either revolver or
sword-stick; and by the end of the week he forgot that he was a marked
man.

On Sunday he told Gil Perez that he intended to visit the Chapel of the
Recogidas.

The rogue's face tw