I made no answer, but looked round the dim and dewy garden.
Here it was doubtless that de Garcia had met that unfortunate who must die this night. A walk of a hundred paces brought us to another door in the wall of a long low building of Moorish style. Here the knocking and the questioning were repeated at more length. Then the door was opened, and I found myself in a passage, ill lighted, long and narrow, in the depths of which I could see the figures of nuns flitting to and fro like bats in a tomb. The abbess walked down the passage till she came to a door on the right which she opened. It led into a cell, and here she left me in the dark. For ten minutes or more I stayed there, a prey to thoughts that I had rather forget. At length the door opened again, and she came in, followed by a tall priest whose face I could not see, for he was dressed in the white robe and hood of the Dominicans that left nothing visible except his eyes.
“Greeting, my son,” he said, when he had scanned me for a while. “The abbess mother has told me of your errand. You are full young for such a task.”
“Were I old I should not love it better, father. You know the case. I am asked to provide a deadly drug for a certain merciful purpose. I have provided that drug, but I must be there to see that it is put to proper use.”
“You are very cautious, my son. The Church is no murderess. This woman must die because her sin is flagrant, and of late such wickedness has become common. Therefore, after much thought and prayer, and many searchings to find a means of mercy, she is condemned to death by those whose names are too high to be spoken. I, alas, am here to see the sentence carried out with a certain mitigation which has been allowed by the mercy of her chief judge. It seems that your presence is needful to this act of love, therefore I suffer it. The mother abbess has warned you that evil dogs the feet of those who reveal the secrets of the Church. For your own sake I pray you to lay that warning to heart.”
“I am no babbler, father, so the caution is not needed. One word more. This visit should be well feed, the medicine is costly.”
“Fear not, physician,” the monk answered with a note of scorn in his voice; “name your sum, it shall be paid to you.”
“I ask no money, father. Indeed I would pay much to be far away to-night. I ask only that I may be allowed to speak with this girl before she dies.”
“What!” he said, starting, “surely you are not that wicked man? If so, you are bold indeed to risk the sharing of her fate.”
“No, father, I am not that man. I never saw Isabella de Siguenza except once, and I have never spoken to her. I am not the man who tricked her but I know him; he is named Juan de Garcia.”