"Do not call it fortune? It was rather the hand of Heaven guarding my dear son's safety, and you were the chosen instrument. And should you know those miscreants again?" Her tone hardened and her eyes flashed, as she put the question; and I thought then I could discern the feeling which had had as much to do with her impatience at my delay in coming to the Palace as her desire to thank me. She was burning with all a Spaniard's hot eagerness for revenge. But it was not my cue to strike at the agents, and my reply was guarded.
"It is possible that if they were face to face with me, I could identify them; but the thing was hurried, the work of no more than a few moments, and my English eyes are not sufficiently accustomed to distinguish between Spanish faces."
"Ah, I am disappointed," cried the Queen, frowning.
"But I can do more than identify the men who actually did the ill-work, Madame; I know by whose hidden hand the wires of the plot were pulled."
"Tell us that, and you will add a thousand times to the obligation that Spain and we owe you, my lord," she exclaimed, strenuously. "Who is the arch-traitor?"
"I shall have need of your Majesty's patient indulgence."
"And you will not ask it in vain, Lord Glisfoyle, if you do not seek it for these villainous Carlists, who would have robbed me of my son and dealt this foul blow at Spain." Then with a quick thought, she asked: "But how comes it that you, an English nobleman, here in Madrid no longer than a few weeks, can have learnt these things?" I believe I could detect a touch of suspicion in her manner; and the King looked up sharply into her face and then across at me.
"By a coincidence in regard to my name, your Majesty. I came to Madrid but a short time ago to join the staff of the British Embassy; I was not then Lord Glisfoyle; and by a chain of coincidences some of the plans of the misguided Carlists became known to me."
"Do you mean you knew of this intended plot against my son?"
"There are always rumours and reports, Madame, and such gossip was, of course, current in your capital—and equally, of course, well known to your Government and officials. But this was different; and the definite tidings came to me at a time and in a form which made it impossible for me to act otherwise than as I did."