‘Ah! then your husband is no doubt a malcontent?’
The woman burst into tears, burying her face in her hands and leaning against the wall in an attitude that was still girlish. She had probably been married at fifteen.
‘No, reverendo! He is a thief.’
Concha merely nodded his head. He never had been a man to betray much pious horror when he heard of ill-doing.
‘The two are almost identical,’ he said quietly. ‘One does what the other fears to do. And is your husband in prison? Is that why you have come back? Ah! you women—in foolishness you almost equal the men!’
‘No, reverendo. I am come back because he has left me. Sebastian has run away, and has stolen all his master’s property. It was the Colonel Monreal of Xeres—a good man, reverendo, but a politician.’
‘Ah!’
‘Yes, and he was murdered, as your reverence has no doubt seen in the newspapers. A week ago it was—the day that the Englishman came with a letter.’
‘What Englishman was that?’ inquired Father Concha, brushing some grains of snuff from his sleeve. ‘What Englishman was that, my child?’
‘Oh, I do not know! His name is unknown to me, but I could tell he was English from his manner of speaking. The Colonel had an English friend who spoke so—one engaged in the sherry in Xeres.’