And by way of reply Marcos handed him a second paper, bearing at its foot the oval seal of the Vatican.  It was the usual dispensation, easy enough to procure, for the marriage of an orphan under age.

“I am glad,” said Mon, and he tried to look it.

Sarrion went on into the narrow corridor.  The friar was sitting on a worm-eaten bench there, leaning back against the wall, his hand over his eyes.

“He is hurt,” explained Marcos, simply.  “He tried to stop us.”

Mon made no comment but accompanied them to the door, which he closed behind them, and then returned to the chapel, reflecting perhaps upon how small an incident the history of nations may turn.  For if the friar had been able to withstand the Sarrions—­if there had been a grating to the small door in the Calle de la Merced—­Don Carlos de Borbone might have worn the three crowns of Spain.

Chapter XIX
cousin Peligros
The novitiate dress had been dispensed with, and Juanita wore her usual
school-dress of black, with a black mantilla.  They therefore walked the
length of the Calle de la Merced without attracting undue attention.

Juanita’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with excitement.  She slipped her hand within Sarrion’s arm and gave it a little squeeze of affection.

“How kind of you to come,” she said.  “I knew I could trust you.  I was never afraid.”

Sarrion smiled a little dryly and glanced towards Marcos, who had met and overcome all the difficulties, and who now walked quietly by his side, concealing the bloodstains on the handkerchief covering his lips.

Then Juanita let go Sarrion’s left arm and ran round behind him to take the other, while with her right hand she took Marcos’ left arm.

“There,” she cried, with a laugh.  “Now I am safe from all the world—­from all the world!  Is it not so?”

“Yes,” answered Marcos, turning to look at her as she moved, her feet hardly touching the ground, between them.

“Why do you look at me like that?” she asked.

“I think you have grown.”

“I know I have,” she answered gravely.  And she stopped in the street to stand her full height and to draw her slim bodice in at the waist.  “I am an inch taller than Milagros, but Milagros is getting most preposterously fat.  The girls tell her that she will soon be like Sor Dorothea who is so huge that she has to be hauled up from her knees like a sack that has been saying its prayers.  That stupid Milagros cries when they say it.”

“Is Milagros going to be a nun?” asked Sarrion, absent-mindedly.  He was thinking of something else and looked at Juanita with a speculative glance.  She was so gay and inconsequent.

“Heaven forbid!” was the reply.  “She says she is going to marry a soldier.  I can’t think why.  She says she likes the drums.  But I told her she could buy a drum and hire a man to hit it.  She is very rich, you know.  It is not worth marrying for that, is it?”