‘But Señor——’
‘Go on! Begin! I tell you I am going to England to-night—sooner, if possible! Bring me my purse. Send to Don Balthazar and tell him that I am going in a few hours.’
He took the purse from the astonished man, and in another minute was in the stable and slipping a bridle over one of the horse’s heads, while the groom put on the saddle and buckled the girths. He threw himself into it and galloped straight to the nearest inn and posting-house in the town, for the carriage which had brought him back on the previous night belonged to a small post-master in Toledo and could be taken no further than Madrid.
Here he had a piece of disguised good fortune, for, though he could get neither cattle nor conveyance that day, a Spanish Government official was starting for France early on the morrow, and was anxious to hear of some gentleman who might occupy the vacant seat in the carriage he had hired and share the expenses of the road. In those days, when people travelled armed, any addition to a party was to be welcomed. It only remained for him to seek his friend Don Balthazar, and, through him, to procure an introduction to the traveller. Their ways would lie together as far as Tours.
Don Balthazar was a friend of his youth; a lean, serious-looking young man who had turned from a luxuriant crop of wild oats and married a woman with whom he was in love at this moment, a year after Gilbert had gone to Scotland. He had never seen Speid so much excited and he succeeded in calming him as the two talked over the details of the journey. They made out that it would take ten days to reach Tours, allowing three extra ones for any mishaps or delays which the crossing of the Pyrenees might occasion. In France, the roads would be better and travelling would improve. Twenty-three days would see him in Scotland; setting out on the morrow, the fourteenth of March, he could reasonably expect to get out of the Edinburgh coach at Blackport on the sixth of April. The wedding was not to take place until the tenth. He did not confide in Don Balthazar; he merely spoke of ‘urgent business.’
‘Of course it is a woman,’ said Doña Mercedes to her husband that night.
‘But he never used to care about women,’ replied he, stroking his long chin; ‘at least——’
‘Is there any man who does not care about women?’ exclaimed the lady, twirling the laced handkerchief she held; ‘bring me one and I will give you whatever you like!’
‘That would be useless, if he had seen you,’ replied Don Balthazar gallantly.
Doña Mercedes threw the handkerchief at him and both immediately forgot Gilbert Speid.