"The colonel was ill, and the young doctor was in attendance when I came this afternoon," I said to the servant. "How came he to recover so quickly as to be able to leave the house?"
"I do not know, senor. The Senor Quesada came here about an hour and a half since, and insisted upon seeing my master. The doctor protested, but the senor prevailed; and some ten minutes later the doctor left the house and has not returned. Senor Quesada remained some time with my master—he was here perhaps half an hour in all—and some few minutes after he left my master went out. I know no more."
Remembering the doctor's address, I drove there at once, and what he told me made matters appear not better, but worse.
"You did not tell me there was any political intriguing involved in this work," he said, with some indignation. "A pretty mess for me it may be, with mighty ugly consequences. Had I known, I should have left the fees for someone else to earn."
"There is nothing of the kind," I answered pretty sharply. "You can come to no harm. I will hold you harmless."
"Thank you for nothing. I know Senor Quesada's influence and power to hit hard, and I don't know yours."
"This was a matter between Colonel Livenza and myself. Will you tell me what passed this afternoon?"
"Senor Quesada came there in a devil of a temper, and when I tried to stop him seeing my patient, his reply was the pretty one that if I attempted to resist him a minute longer he'd pack me off to gaol for a Carlist. And by the Lord he meant it too: for he hadn't been closeted with Livenza five minutes before he came out to me and told me I was either a dupe or a conspirator, and that if I wasn't out of the house in a twinkling he'd take the latter view and act on it; and that there was much more in the thing than I seemed to think."
"And you left?"
"I'm not quite such a mule as to prefer a gaol to my present quarters, thank you."