“The Marquis of Morella.”
Margaret made no answer, but her eyes said much.
“Señora, you do not believe me, nor is it wonderful. Yet I speak the truth. What you saw from the tower was a play in which the Señor Brome took his part badly enough, as you may have noticed, because I told him that my life hung on it. I have nursed him through a sore sickness, Señora, and he is not ungrateful.”
“So I judged; but I do not understand you.”
“Señora, I am a slave in this house, a discarded slave. Perhaps you can guess the rest, it is a common story here. I was offered my freedom at a price, that I should weave myself into this man’s heart, I who am held fair, and make him my lover. If I failed, then perhaps I should be sold as a slave—perhaps worse. I accepted—why should I not? It was a small thing to me. On the one hand, life, freedom, and wealth, an hidalgo of good blood and a gallant friend for a little while, and, on the other, the last shame or blackness which doubtless await me now—if I am found out. Señora, I failed, who in truth did not try hard to succeed. The man looked on me as his nurse, no more, and to me he was one very sick, no more. Also, we grew to be true friends, and in this way or in that I learned all his story, learned also why the trap was baited thus—that you might be deceived and fall into a deeper trap. Señora, I could not explain it all to him, indeed, in that chamber where we were spied on, I had but little chance. Still, it was necessary that he should seem to be what he is not, so I took him into the garden and, knowing well who watched us, made him act his part, well enough to deceive you it would seem.”
“Still I do not understand,” said Margaret more softly. “You say that your life or welfare hung on this shameful business. Then why do you reveal it to me now?”
“To save you from yourself, Señora, to save my friend the Señor Brome, and to pay back Morella in his own coin.”
“How will you do these things?”
“The first two are done, I think, but the third is difficult. It is of that I come to speak with you, at great risk. Indeed, had not my master been summoned to the court of the Moorish king I could not have come, and he may return at any time.”
“Have you some plan?” asked Margaret, leaning towards her eagerly.