“How long a drive is it?” Dick asked resignedly.
“It's about two hundred and seventy miles. If we can start by one or two, bar accidents we ought to be in Madrid by noon.”
“The royal bull-fight's to-morrow,” answered Dick. “Although the wedding's next day, and the invitations have been out a fortnight, Carmona and Lady Monica are bound [pg 342]to be there, as it's a royal invitation show; that means a command.”
“Very well,” said I. “Since it may be as difficult to reach her in Madrid as in Seville and Granada, I shall wait outside the entrance to the bull-ring, and as she's about to go in, she shall see me and hear the whole truth. Don't look as if you thought it would do no good, Dick; if she's promised to marry Carmona in spite of all, it's because he has made her think he can ruin me if she refuses. Pilar's instinct is right, I know; and now for the first time I understand why Carmona didn't denounce me to the police as Casa Triana, when Monica refused to keep her engagement with him, as I'm sure she did. No doubt he told her lies—that I could be imprisoned—for years, perhaps. And his wounded hand—what an opportunity for him! Ah! he wouldn't waste it. He'd make her believe I stabbed him in the cathedral that night. How plausible! And as he's been very ill, can't you imagine what her fears for me must have been? Dick, I regard her coming marriage as a proof of love, not of indifference.”
“I'm ready to agree with you,” said Dick. “But you're risking your life to prove it.”
“Nonsense,” I answered. “The thought that I'm free, that I'm going to her, and that at last I have Carmona in my hand, will give me strength enough to get through.”
Dick raised his eyebrows, but did not answer. He was collecting bread and meat on a plate, to leave for the man upstairs.
Five minutes later we were out of the house and in the street. In front of the miller's premises Ropes was walking up and down. He did not say much when he saw that Dick had a companion; but as he wrung the hand I held out to him, I heard him breathing hard, and he swore under his breath when he saw my face by the light of a street lamp.
It was the look on his which made me realize, as Dick's persuasions had not, that I must delay long enough to be made again into some semblance of a sane man. An hour more before getting [pg 343]on the road would not endanger success, though it would try my patience. A quarter of a mile's walk to the garage was a sharper test of my strength than I would confess; but when Ropes had roused the watchman, filled the good old Gloria with petrol, and started her up the hill, the rush of pure night air gave me life.
At the hotel, we walked in without waking the dozing concièrge. Dick made me free of his things; and when, between us, we had finished my toilet, he admitted that I was not as appalling an object as he had thought. He changed his wet clothes, left a note for the landlord, and it was not yet two o'clock when we started, Ropes driving, Dick with me in the tonneau.