Myra merely nodded, as she seated herself in the furthermost corner of the couch. She did not know what to say or what to believe, and her blue eyes were dark with dread as she watched Don Carlos, who had assumed a nonchalant attitude. He put on the coat he had discarded before going to interview Standish, helped himself to a drink from a side table, and lit a cigarette before taking a seat facing Myra.
"Why, I wonder, do you persist in doubting me?" he said, slowly and deliberately. "What I have told you is true. I had myself thrust as a prisoner into the cell in which your dear Tony Standish is at present imprisoned. He welcomed me like a long-lost brother, told me what had happened, and asked me if I could help to arrange terms with Cojuelo."
He broke off with a laugh, flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette, and finished his drink. Myra, waiting almost breathlessly for him to continue, felt that she wanted to shake him for being so tantalisingly deliberate.
"I told him that I had had a conversation with Cojuelo, and that the brigand had told me he meant to kill him by inches and make him die a hundred deaths for having attempted to murder him," resumed Don Carlos at length. "I told him I could ransom him and get him away scot free, but only if he agreed to hand you over to Cojuelo as part of his ransom."
Again he paused, and Myra could not restrain her impatience.
"Well? Go on. Do you mean to tell me Tony agreed?" she asked. "Or have you to pause every now and again to invent a story?"
"To do him justice, I must tell you that Standish did not at once agree," answered Don Carlos, tossing away the butt of his cigarette. "His idea was that Cojuelo had only been bluffing, and that it was merely a question of offering him enough money. Incidentally, you were right in your estimate, Myra. He said he would pay anything up to ten thousand pounds as a ransom for you. When I told him Cojuelo would not part with you for one hundred thousand pounds, he said he'd see him damned first before he'd pay it. So now you know your market value, as rated by Mr. Antony Standish, who has an income, I understand, of something like a hundred thousand pounds a year!"
"So because Tony wasn't idiot enough to agree to pay more than ten thousand pounds as ransom, you are trying to make out he agreed to resign me and leave me to the tender mercies of Cojuelo?"
Don Carlos shook his head and lit another cigarette with exasperating deliberation.
"Dear Myra, it may wound your pride, but he has resigned you," he said. "His love did not stand the acid test. I told him it was not a question of money, that Cojuelo had fallen madly in love with you and was afire with desire to make you his own, but thought it might bring him bad luck to take a girl who was betrothed to another man, unless the other man agreed to surrender her to him, or, at least, give her her freedom. Mr. Standish protested that nothing would persuade him to surrender you to Cojuelo."