wiped out. He looked at the Alcalde and smiled, whereupon that
official turned and made a signal with his hand to a man who,
dressed in a quiet uniform, had appeared in the doorway of the
house.

'What the deuce we are all trying to do I don't know,' reflected
Conyngham, who indeed was sufficiently at sea to awake the most
dormant suspicions.

The Alcalde, now thoroughly aroused, protested his inability to
neglect a particle of his duty at this troubled period of Spain's
history, and announced his intention of placing Julia Barenna under
surveillance until she handed him the letter she had received from
Conyngham.

'I am quite prepared,' he added, 'to give this caballero the benefit
of the doubt, and assume that he has been in this matter the tool of
unscrupulous persons. Seeing that he is a friend of General
Vincente's, and has an introduction to his Excellency the Duke of
Vittoria, he is without the pale of my jurisdiction.'

The Alcalde made Conyngham a profound bow and proceeded to conduct
Julia and her indignant mother to their carriage.

'There goes,' said General Vincente with his most optimistic little
chuckle, 'a young woman whose head will always be endangered by her
heart.' And he nodded towards Julia's retreating form.

Estella turned and walked away by herself.