But as he watched, a strange drawn look appeared on the countenance of Francis Agnew the Scot. And there came that set look to his mouth, which had enabled him to endure so many things.

“The lad also!” he muttered, “and I had begun to love him!”

For it was not given to Francis Agnew, more than to any other son of Adam, to divine the good when the appearance is evil. And with his elbows on his knees he thought of Claire, of her hope deferred, and of the waiting of the sick heart. She believed this man faithful. And now, would even her father’s return (if ever he did return) make up to her for this most foul treachery?

To John d’Albret he spoke no further word. He asked no question, as they rested side by side during the night-watches. The stammered explanation which the Abbe John began after Valentine’s departure was left unanswered. Francis Agnew had learned a great secret how to keep silence. It is an excellent gift.

The ancient, high-piled town loomed up tier above tier, white and grey and purple under the splendours of the moon. The Abbe John took it in bit by bit the black ledges and capes with the old Moorish castles, and later corsair watch-towers, the flaring phare at the mouth of the harbour, the huge double swell of the cathedral crowning all, the long lines of the arch-episcopal palace on the slope, the vineyards and oliveyards all stood up blanched and, as it were, blotched in pen and ink under the silver flood of light and the steady milky blue arch of the sky. Such was Tarragona upon that night of sleepless silence.

The morning brought a new order, grateful to both.

The armourer of the Conquistador came down, and with file, and rasp, and pince-monseigneur, he speedily undid the iron belt which had not yet had time to eat into the flesh. The Abbe John was commanded to go on shore. During his short time aboard he had made himself a favourite. The Turk, Ben Hamal, hugged him to his hairy chest and stammered a blessing in the name of the Prophet. Others here and there wished him good speed, and looked wistfully at him, even though after John had departed they shook their heads, and with quick upward motions of their thumbs imitated the darting flames of the bi-weekly auto de fe.

They understood why he was sent for and envied him.

Only Francis Agnew the Scot said no word, bade no adieu, wished no wish, gazing steadily at a post on the shore, which to his distorted imagination took on the shape of a woman dressed in white waiting for John d’Albret.

Had he only thought, he would have known that to be impossible. But he did not think except of Claire, his daughter. And as he had said he had begun to love the lad. So much the worse for him and for all.

It was not upon the shore, but high in the city that the Abbe John found Valentine la Nina. She awaited him in that secular annex to the palace of the Archbishop which the great Teres Doria now occupied as Viceroy of Catalonia. The Archbishop-Governor had put his private cabinet at her service. One does not say no to the daughters of reigning sovereigns, when one has served both father and grandfather.

Doria had ordered his valet, a layman with mere servitor’s vows to give him a standing, to assist John d’Albret in his toilet. So before long the Abbe John found himself in a suit of black velvet, severe and unbroidered, which fitted him better than it could ever have done the stouter Don Jacques Casas, for whom it had been made. A sword hung at his side a feeble blade and blunt, as John d’Albret ascertained as soon as he was left a moment alone, but sheathed in a scabbard of price. He sat still and let the good valet perfume and lave, and comb out his love-locks, without thinking much of what was coming. His mind was benumbed and curiously oppressed. Fate planned above his head, shadowy but unseen. And somehow he was afraid he knew not why.

Finally all was done. Even Jacques Casas was satisfied, and smiled. The galley-slave had become a man again.

The cabinet of the Cardinal-Viceroy of Catalonia looked over the city wall, very nearly at its highest seaward angle, in the place where now they have pierced a gate, where red-kerchiefed gipsies sit about on steps, and vagabonds in mauve caps sell snails by measure. But then a little vice-regal garden fronted the windows, and the ancient walls of Tarragona, older than the Romans or the Greeks, older than Carthage older even than the galleys of Tyre fell away beneath towards the sea verges, so solid that to the eye there was little difference between them and the living rock on which they were founded. The giants who were in the times before the flood built them, so the townsmen said. And as no one knows anything about the matter, that opinion is as good as any other.

The two young people stood regarding each other, silent. The blonde masses of the girl’s hair seemed less full of living gold and fire than of yore. Perhaps there was a thread or two of grey mingling with the graciousness of those thick coils and curves. But the great eyes, coloured like clover-honey dropped from the comb, were moist and glorious as ever. They had manifestly gained in directness and nobility.

The Abbe John bowed low. Valentine la Nina did not respond. There was, however, a slight colour on her cheeks of clear ivory. Man born of woman had never seen that before.

“I have sent for you,” said Valentine la Nina, in a low and thrilling contralto, “I would speak with you! Yet this one time more!”

She put her hand rapidly to her throat, as if something there impeded her utterance.

“Yes,” she continued, swallowing down her emotion with difficulty, “I would speak with you it may be for the last time.”

After this she was silent a while, as if making up her mind what to say. Then with a single instinctive mechanical gesture she twitched her long robe of white and creamy lace behind her. It seemed as if she wanted all space wide and clear before her for what she had to say and do. Her eyes devoured those of John d’Albret.

“You still love her?” she said, forcing the words slowly from her lips.

“I love her!” John answered simply. He had nothing to add to that. It had been said before. Any apology would be an insult to Claire. Sympathy a deeper insult to the woman before him.

The carmine flush deepened on her cheek. But it was not anger. The girl was singularly mistress of herself calm, resolved, clear-seeing.

“Ah,” said Valentine la Nina softly, “I expected no other answer. But still, have you remembered that I once gave you your liberty? How you lost it a second time, I do not know. Now I am putting all my cards on the table. I play hearts only. If I and my love are not worthy of yours, will you tell me why another, who has done nothing for you, is preferred to me, who has risked, and am willing to risk everything for you life, death, the world, position, freedom, honour, all! Tell me! Answer me!”

“I loved her first!” said the Abbe John.

“Ah, that too you said before,” she cried, with a kind of sigh, “and you have nothing more to say I nothing more to offer. Yet I cannot tell why it should be so. It seems, in all dispassion, that if I were a man, I should choose Valentine la Nina. Men many men ah, how many men, have craved for that which I have begged you to accept not for your vague princedom, not for your vague hopes, not for your soldier’s courage, which is no rare virtue. But for you yourself! Because you are you and have drawn me, I know not how I see not where ”

“I do not ask you to obtain my release,” said John d’Albret, somewhat uneasily, “I have no claim to that; but I have on board that ship a comrade” here he hesitated “yes, I will tell you his name, for you are noble. It is Francis Agnew, her father, he who was left for dead on the Street of the University by the Guisards of Paris on the Day of the Barricades. He is now at the same bench as I, in the Conquistador ”

“What!” cried Valentine, “not the old man with the white tangled beard I saw by your side when when I saw you?”

“The same,” the Abbe John answered her softly.

Then came a kind of glory over the girl’s face, like the first certainty of forgiveness breaking over a redeemed soul. She drew in her breath sharply. Her hands clasped themselves on her bosom. Then she smiled, but the bitterness was gone out of the smile now.

“I must see this Claire,” she said, speaking shortly and somewhat sternly to herself; “I must know whether she is worthy. For to obtain from my father (who will not of his own goodwill call me daughter) from Philip the King, I mean pardon for two such heretics, one of them the cousin of his chief enemy I must have a great thing to offer. And such I have indeed something that he would almost expend another Armada to obtain. But, before I decide, I must see Claire Agnew. I must look in her eyes, and know if she be worthy. Then I will do it. Or, perhaps, she and I together.”

The last words were murmured only.

The Abbe John, who knew not of what she was speaking, judged it prudent to say nothing.

“Yes I must know,” she went on, still brusquely, “you will tell me where she is. I will go there. And afterwards I will return to the Escorial to see my father Philip the King. Meantime I will speak to the Duke of Err, and to his mother, as well as to the Viceroy Doria. You shall abide in Pilate’s House down there, where is a prison garden ”

“And my friend?” said John d’Albret.

The girl hesitated a little, and then held out her hand. The young man took it.

“And your friend!” she said. “There in Pilate’s House you must wait, you two, till I see till I know that she is worth the sacrifice.”

Once again she laughed a little, seeing a wave of joy or perhaps some more complex emotion sweep over John’s face.

“Ah,” she cried, with a returning trace of her first bitterness, “you are certain that she is worthy. Doubtless so for you! But as the sacrifice is mine I also must be certain ah, very certain. For there is no back-going. It is the end of all things for Valentine la Nina.”

She laughed little and low, like one on the verge of hysterics. A nerve twitched irregularly in her throat under her chin to the right. The pink came out brighter to her cheek. It was a terrible laugh to hear in that still place. And the mirthlessness of it it struck the Abbe John cold.

“This shall be my revenge,” she said, fixing him, with flame in her honey-coloured eyes; “long after, long oh, so so long after” she waved her arm “you will know! And you will see that, however much she has loved you, hers was the love which takes. But mine ah, mine is different. Mine is the love which gives the only true woman’s love without scant, without measure, without bounds of good or evil, without thought of recompense, or hope of reward. Love net, unselfish, boundless, encompassing as the sea, and like a fountain sealed within the heart of a woman. And then then you shall remember that when ye might ye would not ah, ye would not!”

A sob tore her throat.

“But one day, or it may be through all eternity, you shall know which is the greater love, and you shall wish no, you are a man, you will be content with the lesser, the more comprehensible, the goodwife warming her feet by the fire over against yours. There is your ideal. While I I would have carried you beyond the stars!”

The Abbe John took a step nearer her. He had some vague notion of comforting not knowing.

But she thrust her arms out furiously as if to strike him.

“Go go!” she cried, “you are breaking my heart every instant you remain. Is it not enough, that which you have done? I would be quiet. They are waiting for you to take you to Pilate’s House. But tell me first where to find this this Claire Agnew!”

She pronounced the name with difficulty.

“Ah,” Valentine continued, when John had told her how she was safe in Provence, “that is no great way. I shall go and soon return. Then to Madrid is farther, but easier. But if I suffer what I must suffer you can well abide here a little season. The hope the future is with you. For me there is neither save to do the greatest thing for you that ever woman did for man! That shall be my revenge.”