"To-morrow, if you should be asked, say that you drove me to Pozuelo for the train on the Northern Line; do you understand?"
"Depend upon me, señorito."
"Here," said he, giving him some bank-notes. "Take good care of the horses. I will shortly write you what you are to do."
The train rapidly carried the fugitives away, not toward Seville, but to Lisbon. At midnight, the caballero having stepped out a moment, came back with a look of annoyance, saying that he had made a mistake, that they ought to have changed cars farther back. The girl was stupefied and dismayed.
"Don't be so much alarmed, dear. Now instead of staying in some large town on this side where they might get knowledge of us by telegraph, it would be better for us to go into Portugal, and from there go directly to Seville."
Although the girl protested violently, she had no other remedy than to consent.
When they reached Lisbon, they took rooms at one of the best hotels. Don Alfonso promised his cousin to take her the next day to Seville. But a day passed, and then a second and third, and they did not depart. The caballero found one special pretext for postponing the journey. And this was that he had lost his luggage. He was waiting for the arrival of the telegram that he sent about it.
Julita during these days found herself in a state of great excitement, so that she passed instantly and alternately from noisy and unreasonable gayety to deep and extravagant melancholy. Sometimes she grew angry with her cousin and overwhelmed him with taunts and threatened to escape alone or to inform the police; then she would throw herself into his arms and ask his pardon. In the midst of the deepest sadness her lover would begin to mimic in grotesque fashion the accent of the maid who served them, and the girl would laugh like a lunatic. At other times she grew enthusiastic at the view of the bay and the royal palace of Cintra.
The wily caballero humored her with the most delicate and affectionate attentions. When she lost her temper, he would allow her to recover from it without saying a word; when she was sad, he would do everything to enliven her; when finally he saw that she looked contented, he would take advantage of such moments to go out to walk with her, giving her his arm as though they were husband and wife. They were regarded as a newly married couple by the people at the hotel.
Nevertheless, on the fourth day of their visit, as they were in their sitting-room after breakfast, Don Alfonso leaning back in an easy-chair, smoking his cigar, she standing in front of the mirror getting ready to go out, the caballero said, accompanying his words with an ambiguous smile:—