"For yours and hers?"
"For hers and mine. Had it not been that you had to be saved also--that the freedom which Juana had obtained from Morales for me must be transferred to you, since I needed it not, she would never have been allowed to go forth with him. I or Picado would have slain him in the prison and escaped with her."
"I begin to understand."
"'Twas best, however, to let her go forth unknowing--at least it removed him away from what had to be done--made it certain that he could not impede your escape. The rest was easy. I persuaded the mute that 'twas you, not I, whom it was intended to save, that 'twas for you her letter was meant, that it was I who was doomed."
"And Eaton? Eaton?" I asked.
"Eaton has paid the forfeit of his treachery," he said. "It has rebounded on his own head. The braséro thirsted for its victim--the populace for its holiday. They have had it. Trust Nuñez Picado for that."
He said no more, neither then nor later, and never yet have I learnt how that vilest of men was the substitute for those whom he had hoped and endeavoured to send to the flames. Yet, also, never have I doubted that it was done, since certain it is that from that time he has never again crossed my path.
"The storm increases," Gramont said, as he strode to the window and peered out into the darksome night. "Yet--yet--I must go on at daybreak. I--I have that which needs take me on."
"Stay here with us," I cried, "stay here. Juana will be my wife at the first moment chance offers. Stay."
"Nay," he said. "Nay. She and I must never meet again. That is the expiation of my life which I have set myself--I will go through with it. In that last kiss above, I took my farewell of her forever in this world."