Yes, Tormillo--like a toad."

"He was sent to mock you in your pain. He is a fool. We will show him
a fool in his own likeness. Are you content to die?"

"You know that I am content."

He turned to the nun. "Sister Chucha, you will let this lady go. She
goes out to die--I, who love her, am content that she should die. If
she dies not, she returns here. If she dies, you will not ask for her."

The sister stared. "What do you mean, you two? How is she to die?
When? Where?"

"She is to die under the knife of Don Luis," said Gil Perez. "And I am
to lay her there."

"You, my friend! And what have you to do with Don Luis and his
affairs?"

"Manuela is young," said Gil, "and loves her life. I am young, and
love Manuela more than life. If I take her to Don Luis and say, 'Kill
her, Senor Don Luis, and in that act kill me also,' I think he will be
satisfied. I can see no other way of saving the life of Don Osmundo."

"And what do you ask me to do?" the nun asked presently.

"I ask you to give me Manuela presently for one hour or for eternity.
If Don Luis rejects her, I bring her back to you here--on the word of
an old Christian. If he takes her, she goes directly to God, where you
would have her be. Sister Chucha," said Gil Perez finely, "I am
persuaded that you will help us."

Sister Chucha looked at her hands--fat and very white hands. "You ask
me to do a great deal--to incur a great danger--for a gentleman who is
nothing to me."

"He is everything to Manuela," said Gil softly. "That you know."

"And you, Gil Perez--what is he to you?" This was Sister Chucha's
sharpest. Gil took it with a blink.

"He is my master--that is something. He is more to Manuela. And she
is everything to me. Sister, you may trust me with her."

The nun turned from him to the motionless beauty by her side.

"You, my child, what do you say to this project? Shall I let you go?"

Manuela wavered a little. She swayed about and balanced herself with
her hands. But she quickly recovered.

"Sister Chucha," she said, "let me go." The soft green light from her
eyes spoke for her.

CHAPTER XX

MEETING BY MOONLIGHT

By moonlight, in the sheeted park, four persons met to do battle for
the life of Mr. Manvers, while he lay grumbling and burning in his bed,
behind the curtains of it. Don Luis Ramonez was there, the first to
come--tall and gaunt, with undying pride in his hollow eyes, like a
spectre of ranco