He was looking idly through the vile panes, when an old priest passed by, and glanced up beneath shaggy brows.
‘Ah!’ muttered Father Concha, as he hurried on towards the Palazzo Barenna. ‘So far, so good. Where the fox is, will be found the stolen fowl.’
Concepçion Vara, who was saddling his horse in the stable yard of the inn, saw the Padre pass.
‘Ah, clever one!’ he muttered, ‘with your jokes about my wife. Now you may make a false journey for all the help you receive from me.’
And a few minutes later Concepçion rode across the Bridge of Alcantara, some paces behind Conyngham, who deemed it wise to return to his duties at Madrid without delay.
Despite the great heat on the plains, which, indeed, made it almost dangerous to travel at midday, the streets of Toledo were cool and shady enough, as Sir John Pleydell traversed them in search of the Palazzo Barenna. The Contessa was in, and the Englishman was ushered into a vast room, which even the taste of the day could not entirely deprive of its mediæval grandeur. Sir John explained to the servant in halting Spanish that his name was unknown to the Señora Barenna, but that—a stranger in some slight difficulty—he had been recommended to seek her assistance.
Sir John was an imposing-looking man, with that grand air which enables some men not only to look, but to get over a wall while an insignificant wight may not so much as approach the gate. The señora’s curiosity did the rest. In a few minutes the rustle of silk made Sir John turn from the contemplation of a suit of armour.
Madame Barenna glanced towards a chair, which Sir John hastened to bring forward. He despised her already, and she admired his manner vastly.
‘I have taken the immense liberty of intruding myself upon your notice, Madame.’
‘Not to sell me a Bible?’ exclaimed Señora Barenna, with her fan upheld in warning.
‘A Bible! I believe I have one at home, in England, Madame, but—’
‘It is well,’ said Madame sinking back and fanning herself rather faintly. ‘Excuse my fears. But there is an Englishman—what is his name? I forget.’
‘Yes; that is it, Borrow. And he sells Bibles; and Father Concha, my confessor, a bear, but a holy man—a holy bear, as one might say—has forbidden me to buy one. I am so afraid of disobeying him, by heedlessness or forgetfulness. There are, it appears, some things in the Bible which one ought not to read, and one naturally—’