"And I have shown you that you cannot avoid it. For good or ill, the use of my name before I arrived has made it inevitable. You are doing things in my name, and whether you wish it or not, that fact brings us together in close association. What has happened with Vidal de Pelayo may happen at any moment with another; and how can we escape the consequences? But I must make terms, even with you. For instance, you have in the making a plan to carry off the young King——"
"What?" she cried, in a tone of profound astonishment.
"Is it not so?"
"Did Pelayo tell you anything of the kind?"
"Can the followers of Ferdinand Carbonnell have any secrets from him—when they find him in the flesh? He told me no more than he knew—that he was to procure a safe place for a little guest; the rest is surmise; but surmise made easy. And I have come to tell you that the project must be stopped."
"Must?" she cried, angrily.
"Must," I answered, firmly. "Stopped either by you or else go on to be checkmated by me."
"That is a word I have never yet heard from anyone," she exclaimed.
"Then it is quite time somebody used it," said I, as firmly and masterfully as I could make my manner. "I mean it."
"I will not listen to you. I won't bear it," and she got up and stared at me with resentment, surprise and rebellion in every feature of her face.