"I feel somewhat easier in my mind, perhaps," responded the young man. "I dare admit that His Eminence and yourself are more right in your surmises than I am. But I have the honour of calling His Grace of Wessex my friend, and I have an earnest wish in my heart that I could stay another twenty-four hours here, to see that no grievous harm come to him from all this."
With a heavy sigh he finally took up his cloak and bade adieu to the two Spaniards.
Don Miguel escorted him as far as the cloisters, until a servitor took charge of his lordship. Then he turned back to the audience chamber, where he found His Eminence sitting placidly in a high-backed arm-chair.
"Marry! this was the most unprofitable half-hour I have ever spent in my life," quoth the Cardinal with a half-smothered yawn, and speaking in his own native tongue. "These English are indeed impossible with their scruples and their conscience, their friendships and their prejudices. Carramba! what would become of Europe if such follies had to be pandered to?"
"By the Mass! 'tis a mighty lucky chance which hath sent that blundering young fool to the frozen kingdom of Scotland to-night," rejoined Don Miguel with a laugh.
"Chance, my son, is an obedient slave and a cruel mistress. Let us yoke her to our war-chariot whilst she seems amenable to our schemes. I'll now retire to chapel and read my breviary there until Her Majesty hath need of me for her evening orisons. Her curiosity will not allow her to dispense with my services to-night, though she showed me the cold shoulder throughout the banquet. There's a good deal which devolves upon you, my son. Seek out His Grace of Wessex as soon as you can for the special interview which we have planned. I pray you be light-hearted and natural. It should not be a difficult task for Don Miguel de Suarez to play the part of a young and callous reprobate. I, the while, will watch my opportunity, and will have our dramatic little scene well in rehearsal by the time the Duke retires to his own apartments. He must cross this audience chamber to reach them. . . . There shall be no garish light . . . only an open window and the moon if she will favour us. . . . One short glimpse at the wench shall be sufficient. . . . I will contrive that it be brief but decisive. . . . Your talk with His Grace will have paved the way. . . . I will contrive . . . Chance will aid me, but I will contrive."
The voice was changed. It was no longer suave now, but harsh and determined, cruel too in its slow, cold monotones. His Eminence paused awhile, then said more quietly—
"What is the wench doing now?"
"Gazing in rapt admiration at her own face in the mirror," replied Don Miguel lightly, "and incessantly talking of the Duke of Wessex, whom she vows she will see before the dawn. She mutters a good deal about the stars, and some danger which she says threatens her dear lord. Ha! ha! ha!"
His laugh sounded hoarse and bitter, and there was a glimmer of hatred in his deep-set, dark Spanish eyes. There was obviously no love lost here 'twixt His Grace and these schemers, for His Eminence's bland unctuousness looked just now as dangerous as the younger man's hate.