“The count got impatient and told her to talk of something else, but she would not; and at last he went away, cursing your name. Two days before you came to grief he left her, saying,—
“‘Valga me Dios! I will give you a pleasure you do not expect.’
“I assure you that when we heard the pistol-shot after you had gone, she remarked, without evincing the slightest emotion, that the shot was the pleasure her rascally Spaniard had promised her.
“I said that you might be killed.
“‘All the worse for the count,’ she replied, ‘for his turn will come also.’
“Then she began laughing like a madcap; she was thinking of the excitement your death would cause in Barcelona.
“At eight o’clock the following day, your man came and told her that you had been taken to the citadel; and I will say it to her credit, she seemed relieved to hear you were alive.”
“My man—I did not know that he was in correspondence with her.”
“No, I suppose not; but I assure you the worthy man was very much attached to you.”
“I am sure he was. Go on.”