"Strangely enough, he knew this very abbey. It was the week after I had your letter. I told him that a friend of mine wanted to buy the vineyards; and he recognized the name of the place at once. I tried to get him to lend you two thousand on it; but he wouldn't do it to a stranger. Then I asked him to lend it to Sir Percy; and he seemed quite struck with the idea.
"That very night he went and saw Sir Percy on his own account, and they made some sort of three-cornered bargain. The Viscount has squared the Fazenda, and he's given Sir Percy introductions for getting a railway concession—Lisbon to Oporto—worth millions! I suspect the Viscount will get the millions, and Sir Percy will be the figure-head. As for the two thousand eight hundred, they've to pay three hundred on New Year's Day, and the balance in five half-yearly instalments."
"Who will pay? The Viscount? Or the daughter Isabel?"
"Keep quiet. It seems the Viscount told Sir Percy, on the quiet, that there are several jobs about this abbey which they can work together. He mentioned one. These al—I mean, azulejos. Sir Percy has invented a way of getting them down."
Antonio's heart almost stood still.
"They can't, they daren't," he cried at last. "Till the abbey is wholly paid for, how dare they?"
"Who's to object? Hasn't the Fazenda man got three hundred, all for himself? Isn't he going to do anything to earn the money? Da Rocha, I always said you were not a man of the world. They dare, they can, and they will rip down those damned old tiles. And when they've got them down here they're going to get them down in other places—other old convents. The Viscount can get six hundred pounds a set. They're wanted for museums and galleries."
"He can get at least a thousand," cried Antonio.
"So much the better for Sir Percy and the Viscount. That's how the twenty-eight hundred is to be paid. It'll be all right. Now, about your lease of the vineyards."
"Mr. Crowberry," said Antonio, halting and looking with a white face at his friend. "Don't think me ungrateful. But this hurts me to the quick. What if the monks should return to buy back their own? Nay, less. What if one of them should merely revisit it? Those azulejos were their chief pride. What will they say when they know that this, in a sense, is my doing; that it wouldn't have happened if I had never written to you for money?"