He handed the letter back, and thoughtfully dusted his cassock where it was worn and shiny with constant dusting, so that the snuff had nought to cling to.
‘And you have got it—at last. Holy saints—these Englishmen! Do you always get what you want, my son?’
‘Not always,’ replied Conyngham, with an uneasy laugh. ‘But I should be a fool not to try.’
‘Assuredly,’ said Concha, ‘assuredly. And you have come to Ronda—to try?’
They walked on in silence, on the shady side of the street, and presently passed and saluted a priest—one of Concha’s colleagues in this city of the South.
‘There walks a tragedy,’ said Concha, in his curt way. ‘Inside every cassock there walks a tragedy—or a villain.’
After a pause it was Concha who again broke the silence. Conyngham seemed to be occupied with his own thoughts.
‘I come from him—from Barcelona,’ answered Conyngham, ‘where he is in safety. Catalonia is full of such as he. Sir John Pleydell, before leaving Spain, bought this letter for two hundred pounds—a few months ago—when I was a poor man and could not offer a price for it. But Larralde disappeared when the plot failed, and I have only found him lately in Barcelona.’
‘Yes; where he can take a passage to Cuba, and where he awaits Julia Barenna.’
‘Ah!’ said Concha, ‘so he also is faithful—because life is not long, my son. That is the only reason. How wise was the great God when He made a human life short! ‘
‘I have a letter,’ continued Conyngham, ‘from Larralde to the Señorita Barenna.’
‘So you parted friends in Barcelona—after all—when his knife has been between your shoulders?’
‘God bless you, my son!’ said the priest, in Latin, with his careless, hurried gesture of the Cross.
After they had walked a few paces he spoke again.
‘I shall go to Barcelona with her,’ he said, ‘and marry her to this man. When one has no affairs of one’s own there always remain—for old women and priests—the affairs of one’s neighbour. Tell me—’ he paused and looked fiercely at him under shaggy brows—‘tell me why you came to Spain.’
‘You want to know who and what I am—before we reach the Calle Mayor?’ said Conyngham.
‘I know what you are, _amigo mio_, better than yourself, perhaps.’
As they walked through the narrow streets Conyngham told his simple history, dwelling more particularly on the circumstances preceding his departure from England, and Concha listened with no further sign of interest than a grimace or a dry smile here and there.