'Of course, amigo.'

The priest looked at the prostrate man with a face of profound
contempt, and, shrugging his shoulders, went towards the door.

'Come,' he said, 'I must return to Toledo and Julia. It is thither
that this Larralde always returns, and she, poor woman, believes in
him. Ah, my friend'--he paused and shook his long finger at
Conyngham. 'When a woman believes in a man she makes him or mars
him; there is no medium.'



CHAPTER XVIII. IN TOLEDO.



'Meddle not with many matters; for if thou meddle much thou shalt
not be innocent.'

The Cafe of the Ambassadeurs in the Calle de la Montera was at this
time the fashionable resort of visitors to the city of Madrid. Its
tone was neither political nor urban, but savoured rather of the
cosmopolitan. The waiters at the first-class hotels recommended the
Cafe of the Ambassadeurs, and stepped round to the manager's office
at the time of the New Year to mention the fact.

Sir John Pleydell had been rather nonplussed by his encounter with
Conyngham, and, being a man of the world as well as a lawyer, sat
down, as it were, to think. He had come to Spain in the first heat