Old Castile, and from the east, over Aranjuez, where the great river
cuts Spain in two parts from its centre to the sea, a grey cloud--a
very shade of night--was slowly rising. The aspect of the brown
plains was dismal enough, and on the horizon the rolling unbroken
land seemed to melt away into eternity and infinite space.

Conyngham reined in and looked around him. So far as eye could
reach, no house arose to testify to the presence of man. No
labourer toiled home to his lonely hut. For, in this country of
many wars and interminable strife, it has, since the days of
Nebuchadnezzar, been the custom of the people to congregate in
villages and small townships, where a common danger secured some
protection against a lawless foe. The road rose and fell in a
straight line across the table-land without tree or hedge, and
Madrid seemed to belong to another world, for the horizon, which was
distant enough, bore no sign of cathedral spire or castle height.

Conyngham turned in his saddle to look back, and there, not a mile
away, the form of a hurrying horseman broke the bare line of the
dusty road. There was something weird and disturbing in this
figure, a suggestion of pursuit in every line. For this was not
Concepcion Vara. Conyngham would have known him at once. This was
one wearing a better coat; indeed Concepcion preferred to face life
and the chances of the world in shirt sleeves.

Conyngham sat in his saddle awaiting the new-comer. To meet on such
a road in Spain without pausing to exchange a salutation would be a
gratuitous insult, to ride in solitude within hail of another
traveller were to excite or betray the deepest distrust. It was
characteristic of Conyngham that he already waved his hand in