,--"and now, Don Pedro, it would be the more honourable to set free
the countryman of your promised bride and send him in safety to his
friends."

"Senorita," said the Spaniard,--and there was a cloud upon his brow,--"I
would you had asked me any boon but this. Nevertheless I give you my
knightly word that the man shall go, and go unharmed."

"I thank you, Don Pedro," I said, and fought down the cry of joy that
struggled to my lips. Then, because I could find no other words, and
feared to fail in the part I had to play, I took Dame Barbara's scissors
and cut off a long lock of my yellow hair, bound it with riband, and
threw it down to him as guerdon for the favour he had granted me.

This noon, when I joined the Governor's wife as usual under the
vine-hung balcony, I boasted cheerfully of the promise I had wrung from
Melinza; and she demanded at once to hear all that had passed between
us,--then called me a fool for my pains!

"Little marplot! Had you shown less concern for the fate of your
Englishman, it would have been vastly better. You do but cast obstacles
in my way. There is nothing for me to do now but hotly to oppose his
leaving! If needs must I will pretend a liking for the man myself, and
vow to hold him as my guest yet a while longer, for the sake of his
pretty wit and his gallant bearing,--any device to throw dust in their
eyes, so that we seem not to be of the same minds and putting up the
selfsame plea. Oh! little saint with the blue eyes, your _metier_ is not
diplomacy!"

"In sooth, senora, till you first taught me to dissemble I was
unlessoned in the art."

She laughed then, and said that when I had less faith in others I could
more easily deceive.

"If the little Margarita believed Melinza's pretty fable about Habana,
and the excellent company there which his _wife_ would enjoy, 'tis no
wonder that she made a tangle of her own little web."

"But Dona Orosia, think you he would deal unfairly with me? His words
rang so true--even a bad man may love honestly! And if I trifle with the
one saving virtue in his heart, will it not be a grievous sin?"

The mocking smile died out of the Spaniard's eyes and left them
fathomless and sombre.

I felt as one who--looking into an open window, and seeing the light of
a taper glancing and flickering within--draws back abashed, when
suddenly the flame is quenched, and only the hollow dark stares back at
his blinded gaze.

"If he loves you," she said slowly,