“Not afraid of him exactly, but he makes me shiver. He comes and goes like a ghost, and when you least expect him, he is at your elbow. Then, of course, I cannot help remembering he has committed a murder!”
“Nothing of the kind,” said Haldane, laughing and throwing himself into a chair. “My dear Ellen, you don’t believe the whole truth of that affair. True, he surprised that Spanish wife of his with her gallant, whom he stabbed; but I have it on excellent authority that it was a kind of duello; the other man was armed, and so it was a fair fight.” Ellen shuddered, and showed more nervous agitation than her husband could quite account for.
“Take him away with you,” she cried; “take him away. If you never bring him back, I shall rejoice. If I had been consulted, he would never have been brought to England.”
A little later in the evening, when Haldane had returned to his papers, which he was diligently finishing to take away with him, he rang and summoned the Spaniard to his presence.
“Well, it is all settled. I have consulted your mistress, and she insists in your accompanying me to-morrow.”
A sharp flash came upon Baptisto’s dark eyes. He made an angry gesture; then controlling himself, he said in a low, emphatic voice—
“The senora means it? She does not wish me to remain?”
“Just so.”
“May I ask why?
“Only because she does not want you, and I do. Between ourselves, she is not quite so certain of you as I am. She has never forgotten that little affair in Spain.”