, a little bewildered by my responsibility.

Carlos could not tell precisely. It was not till some time after his
arrival from Europe that he became clearly aware of all the extent of
that man's ambition. At the same time, he had realized all his power.
That man aimed at nothing less than the whole Riego fortune, and, of
course, through Seraphina. I would feel a rage at this--a sort of rage
that made my head spin as if the ground had reeled. "He would have found
means of getting rid of me if he had not seen I was not long for this
world," Carlos would say. He had gained an unlimited ascendency over his
uncle's mind; he had made a solitude round this solemn dotage in which
ended so much power, a great reputation, a stormy life of romance and
passion--so picturesque and excessive even in his old man's love,
whose after-effect, as though the work of a Nemesis resenting so much
brilliance, was casting a shadow upon the fate of his daughter.

Small, fair, plump, concealing his Irish vivacity of intelligence under
the taciturn gravity of a Spanish lawyer, and backed by the influence
of two noble houses, O'Brien had attained to a remarkable reputation of
sagacity and unstained honesty. Hand in glove with the clergy, one of
the judges of the Marine Court, procurator to the cathedral chapter, he
had known how to make himself so necessary to the highest in the land
that everybody but the very highest looked upon him with fear. His
occult influence was altogether out of proportion to his official
position. His plans were carried out with an unswerving tenacity
of purpose. Carlos believed him capable of anything but a vulgar
peculation. He had been reduced to observe his action quietly, hampered
by the weakness of ill-health. As an instance of O'Brien's methods, he
related to me the manner in which, faithful to his purpose of making a
solitude about the Riegos, he had contrived to prevent overtures for an
alliance from the Salazar family. The young man Don Vincente himself was
impossible, an evil liver, Carlos said, of dissolute habits. Still, to
have even that shadow of a rival out of the way, O'Brien took advantage
of a sanguinary affray between that man and one of his boon companions
about some famous guitar-player girl. The encounter having taken place
under the wall of a convent, O'Brien had contrived to keep Don Vincente
in prison ever since--not on a charge of murder (which for a young man
of that quality would have been a c