And donna Lenora--thus face to face for the first time in her sheltered life with crime, with horror and with grief--had, in the first moment of despairing misery, not even a prayer to God in her heart, for it was filled with bitter thoughts of resentment and of possible revenge.
She had loved her cousin don Ramon de Linea with all the ardour of her youth, of her warm temperament and of a heart thirsting for the self-sacrifice which women were so ready to offer these days on the altar of their Love. She had never thought him shallow or cruel: to her he had always been just the playmate of childhood's days, the handsome, masterful boy whom she had looked up to as the embodiment of all that was strong and noble and chivalrous, the first man who had ever whispered the magic word "love" in her ear.
Now an unknown enemy had killed him: not in fair fight, not in the open, on the field of honour, but--as her father said--in a tavern, in the dark, surreptitiously, treacherously; and donna Lenora in an agony of passionate resentment had at last broken the silence which had almost frightened her father and had suddenly called out with fierce intensity: "Satan! Satan! Assassin!" Her father had given her an account of the horrible incident, which was nothing but a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end, and Lenora had listened and believed. How could she doubt her own father? She hardly knew him--and he was all she had in the world on whom to pour out the wealth of her affection and of her faith.
II
Truth to tell, de Vargas had received the news of don Ramon's death with unbounded satisfaction.
Lenora had obeyed him and had been this night publicly affianced to Mark van Rycke; but between her consent to the marriage and her willingness to become Alva's tool as a spy among her husband's people there was the immeasurable abyss of a woman's temperament and a woman's natural pity for the oppressed.
But the outrage to-night--the murder of the man whom she still loved despite paternal prohibitions--was bound to react on the girl's warm and passionate nature--and react in the manner which her father desired. He trusted to his own powers of lying, to place the case before his daughter in its most lurid light. He had at once spoken of "spies" and "assassins" and his words had been well chosen. Within a few moments after he had told Lenora the news, he felt that he could play like a skilled musician upon every string of her overwrought sensibilities. Her heart had already been very sore at being forced to part from her first lover; now that the parting had suddenly become irrevocable in this horrible way, all the pent up passion, fierce resentment and wrath which she had felt against her future husband and his people could by clever manipulation be easily merged into an equally fierce desire for revenge.
It was a cruel game to play with a young girl who by blood and race was made to feel every emotion with super-acuteness: but de Vargas was not the man who would ever allow pity or chivalry to interfere with his schemes: he saw in his daughter's mental suffering, in the shattering of her nerves and the horror which had well-nigh paralysed her, nothing but a guarantee of success for that comprehensive project which had the death of the Prince of Orange for its ultimate aim.
"It is strange," murmured the girl after awhile, "that when Ramon talked with me in the Town House last night, he said that these Netherlanders had a habit of striking at an enemy in the dark."
"A presentiment, no doubt," rejoined de Vargas with well-feigned gentleness. "Now, my child, you begin to understand--do you not?--why it is that we Spaniards hate these treacherous Netherlanders. They are vile and corrupt to the heart, every single man, woman or child of them. They fear us and have not the pluck to fight us in the open. Orange and his contemptible little army have sought shelter in Holland--they dare not face the valour and enthusiasm of our troops. But mark you, what Orange hath done! He hath sown the entire country with a crop of spies! They are here, there, everywhere--not very cunning and certainly not brave--their orders are to strike in the dark when and how they can. They waylay our Spanish officers in the ill-lighted, and intricate streets of their abominable cities, they dog their footsteps until they meet them in some lowly tavern or a tenebrous archway: then out comes their dagger, swift and sure, and they strike in the gloom--and a gallant Spanish officer's blood stains the cobblestones of one of their towns. It was don Ramon to-day--it will be Julian Romero perhaps to-morrow--or don Juan de Vargas--who knows? or mayhap the duke of Alva one day. Orange and his crowd are out on a campaign of assassination--an army of assassins has been let loose--and their captain-general wears a mask of leather and our soldiery have dubbed him 'Leatherface'!"