“So I went, who wished to learn all that I could of the building. They led me into a little chamber cut in the thickness of the stone-work, in the wall of which are slits like loop-holes for the shooting of arrows, wide within, but very narrow without, so that I think they cannot be seen from below, hidden as they are between the rough stones of the tower.
“‘This is the place,’ said the marquis, ‘where in the old days the kings of Granada, who were always jealous, used to sit to watch their women in the secret garden. It is told that thus one of them discovered his sultana making love to an astrologer, and drowned them both in the marble bath at the end of the garden. Look now, beneath us walk a couple who do not guess that we are the witnesses of their vows.’
“So I looked idly enough to pass the time, and there I saw a tall man in a Moorish dress, and with him, for their arms were about each other, a woman. As I was turning my head away who did not wish to spy upon them thus, the woman lifted her face to kiss the man, and I knew her for that beautiful Inez who has visited us here at times, as a spy I think. Presently, too, the man, after paying her back her embrace, glanced about him guiltily, and I saw his face also, and knew it.”
“Who was it?” asked Betty, for this gossip of lovers interested her.
“Peter Brome, no other,” Margaret answered calmly, but with a note of despair in her voice. “Peter Brome, pale with recent sickness, but no other man.”
“The saints save us! I did not think he had it in him!” gasped Betty with astonishment.
“They would not let me go,” went on Margaret; “they forced me to see it all. The pair tarried for a while beneath some trees by the bath and were hidden there. Then they came out again and sat them down upon a marble seat, while the woman sang songs and the man leaned against her lovingly. So it went on until the darkness fell, and we went, leaving them there. Now,” she added, with a little sob, “what say you?”
“I say,” answered Betty, “that it was not Master Peter, who has no liking for strange ladies and secret gardens.”
“It was he, and no other man, Betty.”
“Then, Cousin, he was drugged or drunk or bewitched, not the Peter whom we know.”