With the British Legion: A Story of the Carlist Wars

by G. A. Henty

Arthur again went through the story, and gave his reasons for believing that Don Silvio was at the bottom of it.

"I regard that as certain," Leon said; "but that does not alter the facts. I shall have to take every care of Mercedes; they may try to suppress her as they have tried to suppress you. I have seen Queen Christina several times, and she is intensely interested in your case. We must go and see her this afternoon, and lay all the facts before her, and I shall ask her to take Mercedes under her protection, which I am sure she will do. Even the Church would not venture to drag her from the palace. As to your affair, it will require a good deal of talking over. Of course, if you report what has happened to your government they will kick up a tremendous row about it, but I don't know that that would be of any advantage either to her or to us."

"No, I can quite understand that, Leon; and it is the last thing I should wish to do. As you say, it will require a lot of thinking about and talking over; but at the first blush it certainly seems to me that, now that I have got away without further damage or injury than being shut up for a couple of months, the best policy is to say nothing about it; but, of course, we shall have to consider whether there will be any repetition of it, and still more, whether your sister is likely to suffer any persecution or to incur any risk of being kidnapped. Of course you have not told her yet that I have turned up again?"

"No. She does not get up till ten o clock, and I thought it as well not to disturb her; besides, I really knew nothing about it myself beyond the fact that you had reappeared, and even of that I felt scarcely assured until I saw you myself, for I had not entertained a shadow of hope that you were alive. I will go and break the news to her now. You may come across in half an hour."

"Very well, but I shall not expect to see her; perhaps I had better not see her at all to-day. It may be well to break it to her very gradually. If you were to tell her that this morning you had obtained a clue, and thought it possible that I had been carried away and shut up in a monastery; then this afternoon you could further say that you believed you knew which monastery it was in which I was imprisoned, and that you intended at once to take steps to obtain my release; then either this evening or to-morrow morning you could tell her the truth, and take me in to her."

"I believe that would be the best plan, Arthur. She has been very ill, and is at present a mere ghost of herself; but she is of a cheerful disposition, and although she has come to despair of ever seeing you again, I am sure that she would eagerly grasp at any shadow of hope, and once she has you again she will soon pick up."

"In that case I had better not come round to your house, Leon."

"No, I think not. If any of the servants were to see you they might, in spite of any orders that I might issue, make a hash of it in some way or other. I doubt whether they would be able to help doing so--by their looks if not by their tongues, for you are a general favourite in the house; and although no one has ever been told, I should think that many must have some idea how matters stand between you and Mercedes. As Colonel Wylde is away, there can be no reason for your leaving the house, and it is better that you should not do so, because you would be sure to meet somebody who would know you; and as your disappearance has been the talk of the town, they would carry the news home to their families, and some of the ladies might take it across to Mercedes. I will be back again in an hour. I will come round in my carriage, and then we will drive together to the palace. To prevent any possibility of someone spreading the news from there, I will give strict orders that whoever calls to-day--no matter who it is--is not to be allowed to see my sister. Of course I shall not tell either of the girls, their looks would let the secret out before they had been with her for two minutes."

Leon was back in the course of an hour. "I have administered the first dose of hope," he said, "and the effect has been wonderful. Before that she was sitting absolutely listless, taking no interest whatever in anything that went on around her; now she is all flushed and excited. I began by saying that information had reached me that led me to believe that you had been carried to a monastery. I did this very gently and in a roundabout way, but she leapt to her feet with her eyes blazing, and insisted on knowing what were the grounds of my belief. I was obliged to tell her that I knew for almost a certainty that on the evening of the day on which you disappeared, monks were noticed carrying a litter through the streets. I said that of course this might mean nothing, but that it was certainly singular, and that I had already set a number of men to work to find out where the monks had been last seen, and the direction in which they were proceeding, and that I hoped by this afternoon to get certain news. I promised her that I would let her know directly I did so. I argued that four monks would hardly be carrying a dead man, nor could I see any reason why they should be carrying a living one. I said that a cloth had been thrown over the litter and that no one could see who or what was beneath it. I left her walking up and down the room in a state of great agitation, and I rather think it would be better to change our plans and let her know the whole truth shortly."

"Perhaps so, Leon. We will sit here for another half-hour, and then you can go in and break the news to her little by little, till at last you can tell her that I am in the house waiting to see her. But I should advise you, as we go along, to call at your doctor's and take him with you, in case the shock is too much for her."