The girl’s face was even paler than its wont was, as she met her lover’s questioning eyes. Her lips trembled slightly as she said:
“He boasted once, upon our vessel’s deck, that he’d be master when we reached New Spain. Our king had granted lands and silver mines in Mexico to my dear father, rewarding him for his success in France. ’Tis possible—”
An exclamation uttered by de Sancerre interrupted Doña Julia’s surmise. The Frenchman had been examining two imposing parchments by the clear light of the full moon.
“Your father’s scribe, señora, was a man of fertile mind. King Charles of Spain has made two grants covering the same ground, one to his ‘dear, beloved son in Christ, Don Rodrigo de Aquilar,’ and the other to his ‘dear, beloved son in Christ, Don Juan Rodriquez.’ ’Tis clear enough that one of these is forged, but, for my life, I could not pick the honest parchment from the false. Why yonder villain kept them both, I do not understand.”
“I think I know,” mused the girl, in a weary voice. “He thought less of robbery than how to make me his. He would have torn this skilful counterfeit into a thousand bits had I been kind to him.”
“Nom de Dieu! He dared to—”
Doña Julia glanced chidingly at the impetuous Frenchman.
“You spoke not harshly of him when I told you of his awful crimes,” she said, while her hand crept shyly into de Sancerre’s. “Is he less worthy of your leniency because he schemed to win the hand you hold?”
“’Tis selfishness, I know,” said de Sancerre, thoughtfully, gazing contentedly into the dark eyes which met his. “I cared but little that he’d killed some man I never knew, but if he loved you, señora, I’m glad he died the death!” Seizing the forged parchment upon his lap, the Frenchman tore it to pieces and scattered the fragments upon the ground. Then he replaced the genuine grant in the oil-skin bag and fastened it to his sword-belt.
“I must repair my raft, ma chère,” he said to the girl a moment later, bending down to kiss her cheek, cold and smooth and white. “You will forgive me, sweetheart, for loving you so well?”