"Listen, my father," she said, "there are in your galleys at Tarragona two men--one of them the father of this young Scottish girl--the other, her--her betrothed. Pardon them. Let them depart from the kingdom----"
"They were delivered over by the fathers of the Inquisition," said Valentine, less certainly.
"Then it is heresy," said the King. "I can forgive anything but that!"
"For one and the other," said the girl, "their heresy consists in good honest fighting, outside of your Majesty's kingdom--against the Guisard League. They are not your subjects, and were found in your province of Roussillon only by chance."
"Ah, in Roussillon?" said Philip thoughtfully. And picking up a long pole like the butt of a fishing-rod furnished with a pair of steel nippers like a finger-and-thumb at the top, he turned half round to an open cabinet of many pigeon-holes, where were bundles innumerable of papers all arranged and neatly tied. The pincers clicked, and the King, with a smile of triumph at his little piece of dexterity, withdrew half-a-dozen folded sheets.
"Yes, I have heard," he said, "the men you commanded my Viceroy to remove from the galleys and to place in Pilate's House at Tarragona--a young Sorbonnist whom once before you allowed to escape at Perpignan, and the Scottish spy Francis Agnew."
"My father," began Claire, catching the name, but only imperfectly understanding the Castilian which they were speaking--"my father is----"
But Valentine la Niña stopped her with an imperious gesture of the hand. It was her affair, the movement said.
The King shook his head gravely and a little indulgently.
"My daughter," he said, "you have taken too much on yourself already. And my Viceroy in Catalonia is also to blame----"
"Pardon me," cried Valentine la Niña, "and listen. This is what I came to say. There is in your city of Madrid a convent of the Carmelites, the same which Theresa reformed. It is strictly cloistered, the rule serene, austere. Those who enter there have done with life. Give these two men their liberty, escort them to France, and I promise you I will enter it of my own free will. I will take the Black Veil, and trouble neither you nor your heirs more in this world."
The King did not answer immediately, but continued to turn over the sheaf of papers in his hand.