getting herself carried off by a Polish nobleman disguised as a
priest. Every one remembered the marvellous voice that used to sing so
high above all the other nuns, behind the lattice on Sunday afternoons
at the church of the Dominican Convent. That had been the voice of
Margarita da Cordova, and she could never go back to Spain, for if she
did the Inquisition would seize upon her, and she would be tortured
and probably burnt alive to encourage the other nuns.

This was very romantic, but unfortunately there was a man who said he
knew the plain truth about her, and that she was just a good-looking
Irish girl whose father used to play the flute at a theatre in Dublin,
and whose mother kept a sweetshop in Queen Street. The man who knew
this had often seen the shop, which was conclusive.

Margaret showed herself daily and the myths lost value, for every
one saw that she was neither an escaped Spanish nun nor the gifted
offspring of a Dublin flute-player and a female retailer of
bull's-eyes and butterscotch, but just a handsome, healthy,
well-brought-up young Englishwoman, who called herself Miss Donne in
private life.

But gossip, finding no hold upon her, turned and rent Mr. Van Torp,
who dwelt within his tent like Achilles, but whether brooding or
sea-sick no one was ever to know. The difference of opinion about him
was amazing. Some said he had no heart, since he had not even waited
for the funeral of the poor girl who was to have been his wife.
Others, on the contrary, said that he was broken-hearted, and that
his doctor had insisted upon his going abroad at once, doubtless
considering, as the best practitioners often do, that it is wisest
to send a patient who is in a dangerous condition to distant shores,