"You have news?" she asked, watching me with anxious eyes, and she stood aside in the shadow of the door while I went in.
"Your father is safe. He was sent to the frontier last night on a special train. He is free."
She had been steel to meet a blow. Now that it did not fall, her strength for a moment failed her. She leaned against a table with her hand to her heart; and her face suddenly told me that she had not slept.
"I will follow him," she said, and she hurried up the stairs. I looked out a train. One left Santa Paula in an hour's time. I went out, leaving the door ajar, and fetched a carriage. Then I shouted up the stairs to Olivia, and she came down in a travelling dress of light grey and a big black hat. Excitement had kindled her. I could no longer have guessed that she had not slept.
"You will see me off?" she said, as she handed me her bag; and she stepped gaily into the carriage.
"I will," I answered, and I jumped in behind her.
The die was cast now.
"Drive down to the station!" I cried.
It was an open carriage. There were people in the street. Juan Ballester would soon learn that he had played the grand gentleman to his discomfiture.
"Yes, I will see you off, Señorita," I said. "But I shall have a bad half-hour with Ballester afterwards."