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Fonseca, as if stupefied, stared a moment at Calderon, and then burst into a wild laugh. Calderon continued:

“Nevertheless, do not despair. Be patient; I am ever about the duke; nay, I have the courage, in your cause, to appeal even to the king himself.”

“And to-night she expects me–to-night she was to be free!”

“We can convey the intelligence of your mischance to her: the porter will befriend you.”

“Away, false friend, or powerless protector, that you are! Are your promises of aid come to this? But I care not; my case, my wrongs, shall be laid before the king; I will inquire if it be thus that Philip the Third treats the defenders of his crown. Don Roderigo Calderon, will you place my memorial in the hands of your royal master? Do this, and I will thank you.”

“No, Fonseca, I will not ruin you; the king would pass your memorial to the Duke de Lerma. Tush! this is not the way that men of sense deal with misfortune. Think you I should be what I now am, if, in every reverse, I had raved, and not reflected? Sit down, and let us think of what can now be done.”

“Nothing, unless the prison door open by sunset!”

“Stay, a thought strikes me. The term of your imprisonment ceases when you relinquish the hope of Beatriz. But what if the duke could believe that Beatriz relinquished you? What, for instance, if she fled from the convent, as you proposed, and we could persuade the duke that it was with another?”

“Ah! be silent!”

“Nay, what advantages in this scheme–what safety! If she fly alone, or, as supposed, with another lover, the duke will have no interest in pursuit, in punishment. She is not of that birth that the state will take the trouble, very actively, to interfere: she may reach France in safety; ay, a thousand times more safely than if she fled with you, a hidalgo and a man of rank, whom the state would have an interest to reclaim, and to whom the Inquisition, hating the nobles, would impute the crime of sacrilege. It is an excellent thought! Your imprisonment may be the salvation of you both: your plan may succeed still better without your intervention; and, after a few days, the duke, believing that your resentment must necessarily replace your love, will order your release; you can join Beatriz on the frontier, and escape with her to France.”

“But,” said Fonseca, struck, but not convinced, by the suggestion of Calderon, “who will take my place with Beatriz? who penetrate into the gardens? who bear her from the convent?”

“That, for your sake, will I do. Perhaps,” added Calderon, smiling, “a courtier may manage such an intrigue with even more dexterity than a soldier. I will bear her to the house we spoke of; there I know she can lie hid in safety, till the languid pursuit of uninterested officials shall cease, and thence I can easily find means to transport her, under safe and honourable escort, to any place it may please you to appoint.”

“And think you Beatriz will fly with you, a stranger? Impossible! Your plan pleases me not.”

“Nor does it please me,” said Calderon, coldly; “the risks I proposed to run are too imminent to be contemplated complacently: I thank you for releasing me from my offer; nor should I have made it, Fonseca, but from this fear, what if to-morrow the duke himself (he is a churchman, remember) see the novice? what if he terrify her with threats against yourself? what if he induce the abbess and the Church to abridge the novitiate? what if Beatriz be compelled or awed into taking the veil? what if you be released even next week and find her lost to you for ever?”

“They cannot–they dare not!”

“The duke dares all things for ambition; your alliance with Beatriz he would hold a disgrace to his house. Think not my warnings are without foundation–I speak from authority; such is the course the Duke de Lerma has resolved upon. Nothing else could have induced me to offer to brave for your sake all the hazard of outraging the law and braving the terrors of the Inquisition. But let us think of some other plan. Is your escape possible? I fear not. No; you must trust to my chance of persuading the duke into prosecuting the matter no further; trust to some mightier scheme engrossing all his thoughts; to a fit of good-humour after his siesta; or, perhaps, an attack of the gout, or a stroke of apoplexy. Such, after all, are the chances of human felicity, the pivots on which turns the solemn wheel of human life.”