"Yes. There was no great hardship in it. I had books to read and very decent food, so the only thing I had to complain of was my loss of liberty."
He chatted for a few minutes longer, and then the door opened and Leon appeared and beckoned to Arthur to follow him. "She knows that you are in Madrid and free, and that you will be here in a few minutes. You had better leave her to herself for a little while to get calm. Of course she is greatly shaken, but she stood it better than I had expected, when I went in. I found that she believed I had not told her all, and was prepared to find that I had really got some important clue as to your whereabouts. Of course that made it easier for me to tell her the truth gradually."
They talked for a short time and then Leon went out of the room, and a minute later Mercedes ran in, and with a cry of joy rushed into Arthur's arms. Leon came in ten minutes later, and found her sitting on a sofa with her head on Arthur's shoulder.
"It is almost worth while having been so unhappy, Leon," she said, "to feel such joy as I do now."
"Well, I won't say that, Mercedes; at the same time I admit that it is very joyful to have him back again."
"I know nothing yet," she said, "of what has happened, or what has kept him away from us. I have been too perfectly happy at having him back, to think of asking what he has been doing."
"He has been shut up to keep him away from you."
"To keep him away from me?" Mercedes repeated.
"Yes, dear. It seems that it occurred to some of the worthy fathers of the church that it would be a very sinful thing for you to marry a heretic; and also that if this heretic were to disappear, possibly you might take it into your head to enter a convent and bestow your wealth upon the church. Accordingly they seized him and put him into a cell in a monastery, and informed him that he would have to remain there until you had entered a convent. As Arthur entertained quite different views he set to work to escape from his cell, and after six weeks' hard digging underground, he this morning made his way out, and here he is."
"Is it possible," the girl said, standing up with wide open eyes, "that it was the church that took Arthur from me?"