"Frankly, and in the sense in which you ask--it is."
The last fatal words Carlos only whispered. Gonsalvo made no answer; but a kind of momentary spasm passed across his face.
Carlos at length went on in a low voice: "She knew the Evangel long before I did, though she is so young--not yet one-and-twenty. She was the pupil of Dr. Egidius; but he was wont to say he learned more from her than she did from him. Her keen, bright intellect cut through sophistries, and reached truth so quickly. And God gave her abundantly of his grace; making her willing, for that truth, to endure all things. Oft have I seen her sweet face kindle and glow whilst he who taught us spoke of the joy and strength given to those that suffer for the name of Christ. I am persuaded He is with her now, and will be with her even to the end. Could you gain access to her where she is, I think she would tell you she possesses a treasure of peace of which neither death nor suffering, neither cruelty of fiends nor worse cruelty of fiend-like men, can avail to rob her."
"She is a saint--she will be a blessed saint in heaven, let them say what they may," murmured Gonsalvo hoarsely. Then the fierce look returned to his face again. "But I think the old Christians of Castile, the men whose good swords made the infidels bite the dust, and planted the cross on their painted towers, are no better than curs and dastards."
"In that they suffer these things?"
"Yes; a thousand times, yes. In the name of man's honour and woman's loveliness, are there, in our good city of Seville, neither fathers, nor brothers, nor lovers left alive? No man who thinks the sweetest eyes ever seen worth six inches of steel in five skilful fingers? No one man, save the poor forgotten cripple, Don Gonsalvo Alvarez. But he thanks God this night that he has spared his life, and left strength enough in his feeble limbs to bear him into a murderer's presence."
"Don Gonsalvo! what do you mean?" cried Carlos, shrinking from him.
"Lower thy voice, an' it please thee. But why should I fear to tell thee--thee, who hast good cause to be the death-foe of Inquisitors? If thou art not cur and dastard too, thou wilt applaud and pray for me. For I suppose heretics pray, at least as well as Inquisitors. I said I would reach the heart of Gonzales de Munebrãga this night. Not with gold. There is another metal of keener temper, which enters in where even gold cannot come."
"Then you mean--murder?" said Carlos, again drawing near him, and laying his hand on his arm. Gonsalvo sank into a seat, half mechanically, half from an instinct that led him to spare the strength he would need so sorely by-and-by.
In the momentary pause that followed, the clock of San Vicente tolled the midnight hour.