The mournful severity of that reproof did not affect Charles Gould, but he was sensible to the glances of the others directed upon him without reproach, as if only to read their own fate upon his face. All of them had talked, shouted, and declaimed in the great sala of the Casa Gould. The feeling of compassion for those men, struck with a strange impotence in the toils of moral degradation, did not induce him to make a sign. He suffered from his fellowship in evil with them too much. He crossed the Plaza unmolested. The Amarilla Club was full of festive ragamuffins. Their frowsy heads protruded from every window, and from within came drunken shouts, the thumping of feet, and the twanging of harps. Broken bottles strewed the pavement below. Charles Gould found the doctor still in his house.
Dr. Monygham came away from the crack in the shutter through which he had been watching the street.
“Ah! You are back at last!” he said in a tone of relief. “I have been telling Mrs. Gould that you were perfectly safe, but I was not by any means certain that the fellow would have let you go.”
“Neither was I,” confessed Charles Gould, laying his hat on the table.
“You will have to take action.”
The silence of Charles Gould seemed to admit that this was the only course. This was as far as Charles Gould was accustomed to go towards expressing his intentions.
“I hope you did not warn Montero of what you mean to do,” the doctor said, anxiously.
“I tried to make him see that the existence of the mine was bound up with my personal safety,” continued Charles Gould, looking away from the doctor, and fixing his eyes upon the water-colour sketch upon the wall.
“He believed you?” the doctor asked, eagerly.
“God knows!” said Charles Gould. “I owed it to my wife to say that much. He is well enough informed. He knows that I have Don Pepe there. Fuentes must have told him. They know that the old major is perfectly capable of blowing up the San Tome mine without hesitation or compunction. Had it not been for that I don't think I'd have left the Intendencia a free man. He would blow everything up from loyalty and from hate—from hate of these Liberals, as they call themselves. Liberals! The words one knows so well have a nightmarish meaning in this country. Liberty, democracy, patriotism, government—all of them have a flavour of folly and murder. Haven't they, doctor? … I alone can restrain Don Pepe. If they were to—to do away with me, nothing could prevent him.”