rita--why, she is too near the saints for all the
great nobility of her spirit. But, _que dia-bleria_, when I--in my
devotion--opened my mouth to her I saw some of that spirit in her
eyes...."

There was a slight irony in his voice. "No! Me--Castro! to be told that
an English Senora would have dismissed me forever from her presence for
such a hint. 'Your Excellency,' I said, 'deign, then, to find it good
that I should avoid giving offence to that man. It is not my desire to
run my neck into the iron collar.'"

He looked at me fixedly, as if expecting me to make a sign, then
shrugged his shoulders.

"_Bueno_. You see this? Then look to it yourself, Senor. You are to
me even as Don Carlos--all except for the love. No English body is big
enough to receive his soul. No friend will be left that would risk his
very honour of a noble for a man like Tomas Castro. Let me warn you not
to leave the Casa, even if a shining angel stood outside the gate and
called you by name. The gate is barred, now, night and day. I have
dropped a hint to Cesar, and that old African knows more than the Senor
would suppose. I cannot tell how soon I may have the opportunity to talk
to you again."

He peeped through the crack of the door, then slipped out, suddenly
falling at once on his hands and knees, so as to be hidden by the stone
balustrade from anybody in the _patio_. He, too, did not think himself
safe.

Early in the evening I descended into the court, and Father Antonio,
walking up and down the _patio_ with his eyes on his breviary, muttered
to me:

"Sit on this chair," and went on without stopping.

I took a chair near the marble rim of the basin with its border of
English flowers, its splashing thread of water. The goldfishes that had
been lying motionless, with their heads pointing different ways, glided
into a bunch to the fall of my shadow, waiting for crumbs of bread.

Father Antonio, his head down, and the open breviary under his nose,
brushed my foot with the skirt of his cassock.

"Have you any plan?"

When he came back, walking very slowly, I said, "None."

At this next turn I pronounced rapidly, "I should like to see Carlos."

He frowned over the edge of the book. I understood that he refused to
let me in. And, after all, why should I disturb that dying man? The news
about him was that he felt stronger that day. But he was preparing for
eternity. Father Antonio's business was to save souls. I felt horribly
crushed a