ne. It is so seldom
used."

And she fingered them, one by one.

Mon glanced at her sharply, though his lips still smiled.

"Allow me," he said. "Those keys among which you are looking are the keys
of cupboards and not of doors. There are only two door keys among them
all."

He took the keys and led the way towards the door hidden behind the grove
of nut-trees. The nightingales were singing as he passed beneath the
boughs, followed by Sor Teresa. Juanita hurrying up towards the house by
another path, turned and glanced anxiously over her shoulder.

"This, I think, will be the key," said Mon, affably, as he stooped to
examine the lock. And he was right.

He opened the door, passed out and turned to salute Sor Teresa before he
closed it gently, in her face.

"Go with God, my sister," he said, bowing with a raised hat and
ceremonious smile.

He waited until he heard Sor Teresa lock the door from within. Then he
turned to examine the ground in the little lane that skirts the convent
wall. But on the sun-baked ground, the neat, light feet of the Moor had
made no mark. He looked at the wall, but failed to perceive the hole in
it, for the woodbine and the wild rose tree covered it like a curtain.

Marcos had made a round by the summit of the hill and turning to the
right rejoined the high road from the Casa Blanca, crossing the canal
again by that bridge and returning to Saragossa by the broad avenue known
as the Monte Torrero.

He reined in his horse beneath the lamp that hangs from the trees
opposite to the gate of the town called the Puerta de Santa Engracia, and
unfolded the note that

Juanita had written to him. It was scribbled in pencil on a half sheet
torn from an exercise book.

"Dear Marcos," it said. "Thank you most preposterously for the
chocolates. The next time please put in some almonds. Milagros so loves
almonds; and I am very fond of Milagros--Your grateful Juanita."

There was a mistake in the spelling.

CHAPTER XI

THE ROYAL ADVENTURE
There are halting-places in the lives of most men when for a period the
individual desire must give place to some great national need. We each
live our little story through, but at times we find ourselves dragged
from the narrow way into the great high road, where the history of the
world blunders to an end which cannot even yet be dimly discerned.

When Marcos rode into Saragossa after nightfall he found the streets
filled by groups of anxious men. T