iest, that those who carry out the sentence may know nothing. Still
others will know and I warn you that should you speak of the matter you
yourself will meet with misfortune. The Church avenges itself on those
who betray its secrets, senor.'

'As one day its secrets will avenge themselves upon the Church,' I
answered bitterly. 'And now let me seek a fitting drug--one that is
swift, yet not too swift, lest your hounds should see themselves baffled
of the prey before all their devilry is done. Here is something that
will do the work,' and I held up a phial that I drew from a case of such
medicines. 'Come, veil yourself, mother, and let us be gone upon this
"errand of mercy."'

She obeyed, and presently we left the house and walked away swiftly
through the crowded streets till we came to the ancient part of the city
along the river's edge. Here the woman led me to a wharf where a boat
was in waiting for her. We entered it, and were rowed for a mile or more
up the stream till the boat halted at a landing-place beneath a high
wall. Leaving it, we came to a door in the wall on which my companion
knocked thrice. Presently a shutter in the woodwork was drawn, and a
white face peeped through the grating and spoke. My companion answered
in a low voice, and after some delay the door was opened, and I found
myself in a large walled garden planted with orange trees. Then the
abbess spoke to me.

'I have led you to our house,' she said. 'If you know where you are, and
what its name may be, for your own sake I pray you forget it when you
leave these doors.'

I made no answer, but looked round the dim and dewy garden.

Here it was doubtless that de Garcia had met that unfortunate who must
die this night. A walk of a hundred paces brought us to another door in
the wall of a long low building of Moorish style. Here the knocking and
the questioning were repeated at more length. Then the door was opened,
and I found myself in a passage, ill lighted, long and narrow, in the
depths of which I could see the figures of nuns flitting to and fro like
bats in a tomb. The abbess walked down the passage till she came to a
door on the right which she opened. It led into a cell, and here she
left me in the dark. For ten minutes or more I stayed there, a prey to
thoughts that I had rather forget. At length the door opened again, and
she came in, followed by a tall priest whose face I could not see, for
he was dressed in the white robe and hood o