“Would you learn, Betty? Then I will tell you. I am betrayed. Peter Brome, the man whom I looked upon almost as my husband, is false to me.”
“Master Peter false!” exclaimed Betty, staring at her open-mouthed. “No, it is not possible. I know him; he could not be, who will not even look at another woman, if that is what you mean.”
“You say so. Then, Betty, listen and judge. You remember this afternoon, when the marquis took us to see the wonders of this palace, and I went thinking that perhaps I might find some path by which afterwards we could escape?”
“Of course I remember, Margaret. We do not leave this cage so often that I am likely to forget.”
“Then you will remember also that high-walled garden in which we walked, where the great tower is, and how the marquis and that hateful priest Father Henriques and I went up the tower to study the prospect from its roof, I thinking that you were following me.”
“The waiting-women would not let me,” said Betty. “So soon as you had passed in they shut the door and told me to bide where I was till you returned. I went near to pulling the hair out of the head of one of them over it, since I was afraid for you alone with those two men. But she drew her knife, the cat, and I had none.”
“You must be careful, Betty,” said Margaret, “lest some of these heathen folk should do you a mischief.”
“Not they,” she answered; “they are afraid of me. Why, the other day I bundled one of them, whom I found listening at the door, head first down the stairs. She complained to the marquis, but he only laughed at her, and now she lies abed with a plaster on her nose. But tell me your tale.”
“We climbed the tower,” said Margaret, “and from its topmost room looked out through the windows that face south at all the mountains and the plain over which they dragged us from Motril. Presently the priest, who had gone to the north wall, in which there are no windows, and entered some recess there, came out with an evil smile upon his face, and whispered something to the marquis, who turned to me and said:
“‘The father tells me of an even prettier scene which we can view yonder. Come, Señora, and look.’