As he spoke a sudden gleam of satisfaction shot into the Italian's eyes, and a second time a hope, far greater than the first, rose in the petitioner's heart; but yet again it was dashed to the ground. Just as he was prepared to hear that his terms were agreed upon, his companion's countenance underwent a sudden change. A shadow had just fallen across the floor, and with a heavy scowl replacing the expression of greed he bent forward with the hasty mutter:
"Fool of a Spaniard, has that idiot tongue of thine but one tone, that thou must needs screech thy offers, like a parrot from the Indies, into all ears that choose to listen?" Then aloud, as though in continuation of a widely-different theme: "And so, as I tell thee, thy offers go for nought, for the wealth will of right flow into the coffers of the Sacred Office when the accursed Jew shall have suffered in the flesh to save his soul. And now," insolently, "I have no more time to listen to thy prating, and so go."
Whether he went of his free will, or was turned out, Montoro de Diego never clearly remembered, but on finding himself beneath the starry sky, he dashed off to the palace of the dread Arbues himself. Well-nigh frantic with despair, as he thought of the torments that the aged prisoner was even then all too probably undergoing, he forced admittance, late though the hour was, to the presence of the stern ecclesiastic, who was prudently surrounded by guards even in the privacy of his own supper-room. Nothing short of the great influence of Don Diego's high rank would have enabled him to penetrate so far, but even that did not protect him from the Inquisitor's rebuke, nor gain him a favourable hearing for his cause.
"It is our blessed office," said the bigoted supporter of Rome's worst errors, "to purge the Church, to—"
"If Don Philip die, others will die with him," sharply interrupted the young Spaniard, with fierce significance, and he left the Inquisitor's palace as abruptly as he had entered it, half determined, in that bitter hour, to throw in his lot with the conspirators. If there were none to listen to reason, none to obey the dictates of justice or mercy, why should he maintain alone his integrity?
So passion and despair tried to argue against his conscience, as he retraced his steps to his own home and the waiting Rachel. But the events of that night were not yet over.
[CHAPTER IV.]
THINKING OF EXILE.
As Montoro de Diego entered the deep portico of his palace entrance, he stumbled against some obstruction in the way. He stooped, and found there was a man dead, or in a deep swoon, lying at his feet.