table. Christina was explaining something. Was she explaining that
arrangement of the gloves? Was that arrangement the reason of her
ready acceptance of his refusal to part with his orders? Was it, in a
word, a signal for Esteban--a signal which should tell him whether
or not she had secured the letter? Shere saw a way to answer that
question. He was now filled with distrust of Christina as half an hour
back he had been filled with faith in her; so that he paid no heed
to her apology, or to the passionate and pleading voice in which she
spoke it.

"So much was at stake for us," she said. "It seemed a necessity that
we must have that letter, that no sudden orders must reach Olvera
to-night. For there is some one at Olvera--I must trust you, you see,
though you are our pledged enemy--some one of great consequence to us,
some one we love, some one to whom we look to revive this Spain of
ours. No, it is not our King, but his son--his young and gallant son.
He will be gone to-morrow, but he is at Olvera to-night. And so when
Esteban found out to-day that orders were to be sent to the commandant
there it seemed we had no choice. It seemed those orders must not
reach him, and it seemed therefore--just so that no hurt might be
done, which otherwise would surely have been done, whatever I might
order or forbid--that I must use a woman's way and secure the letter."

"And the bearer?" asked Shere, advancing to the table. "What of him?
He, I suppose, might creep back to Ronda, broken in honour and with a
lie to tell? The best lie he could invent. Or would you have helped
him to the lie?"

Christina shrank away from the table as though she had been struck.