“I beg you to tell me all as soon as possible. Even minutes may be of vital importance,” I said earnestly.
She made an effort to check her wild sobs. “But we cannot do anything,” she wailed helplessly.
“Not unless you can let me know what has happened,” I replied sharply. “If anything is to be done, it must be at once.”
“I will try to tell you,” she said a minute later, sitting up.
“I know that Miralda was here yesterday,” I said, “because I sent to her and received a letter from her. That was early in the afternoon. Will you tell me everything that occurred after that?”
“I know very little, Mr. Donnington. In the afternoon Inez came and the two were alone together. Miralda came to me afterwards and I saw that she was both greatly excited and distressed. It was in some way connected with this miserable conspiracy business. She told me that something very important was to happen; but that she herself did not know what it was. She was to go for the evening to Inez. I was in great trouble about Vasco, you know. He was in bed ill—he had been drinking heavily the night before, I must tell you.”
“Did he leave the house yesterday?” I interposed.
“No. He was getting better toward the evening and said he had to go out; but I went up later and found him sleeping so soundly that I could not rouse him.”
“Was Miralda in the house then?”
“No, she had been gone about half an hour. Well, I waited by his bedside for a long time, an hour or more—I could not say how long. When Inez arrived I went down to her, and she asked me where Miralda was. I said she had gone to her house. She had never reached there, however; and then Inez said she had something very serious to tell me. It was that Miralda had been in secret communication with you, and that as some of their friends suspected you of having betrayed them in some way, Miralda had also fallen under suspicion. She had disappeared, and one of three things must be the cause. She had been arrested, or had got into the hands of those who suspected her, or had run away with you.”