They passed through a doorway whither two men had hurried to open the heavy doors, and the scent of violets and mignonette, of orange in bloom, and of a hundred opening buds swept across their faces. The brilliant sunlight almost dazzled eyes that had grown accustomed to the cool shade of the patio, for Ronda is one of the sunniest spots on earth, and here the warmth is rarely oppressive. The garden was Moorish, and running water in aqueducts of marble, yellow with stupendous age, murmured in the shade of tropical plants. A fountain plashed and chattered softly, like the whispering of children. The pathways were paved with a fine white gravel of broken marble. There was no weed amid the flowers. It seemed a paradise to Conyngham, fresh from the grey and mournful northern winter, and no part of this weary, busy world. For here were rest and silence, and that sense of eternity which is only conveyed by the continuous voice of running or falling water. It was hard to believe that this was real and earthly. Conyngham rubbed his eyes and instinctively turned to look at his companion, who was as unreal as his surroundings—a round-faced, chubby little man, with a tender mouth and moist dark eyes looking kindly out upon the world, who called himself General Vincente; and the name was synonymous in all Spain with bloodthirstiness and cruelty, with daring and an unsparing generalship.
‘Come,’ said he, ‘let us look for Estella.’
He led the way along a path winding among almond and peach trees in full bloom, in the shadow of the weird eucalyptus and the feathery pepper tree. Then with a little word of pleasure he hurried forward. Conyngham caught sight of a black dress and a black mantilla, of fair golden hair, and a fan upraised against the rays of the sun.
‘Estella, here is a guest: Mr. Conyngham, one of the brave Englishmen who remember Spain in her time of trouble.’
Conyngham bowed with a greater ceremony than we observe to-day, and stood upright to look upon that which was for him from that moment the fairest face in the world. As, to some men, success or failure seems to come early and in one bound, so, for some, Love lies long in ambush, to shoot at length a single and certain shaft. Conyngham looked at Estella Vincente, his gay blue eyes meeting her dark glance with a frankness which was characteristic, and knew from that instant that his world held no other woman. It came to him as a flash of lightning that left his former life grey and neutral, and yet he was conscious of no surprise, but rather of a feeling of having found something which he had long sought.