"
"You must be feeling terribly anxious about your cousin," the officer who
had first told him about her remarked; "there is no saying what may have
happened in Oporto after it was stormed."
"I should indeed be, if she were there," Terence replied; "but I am happy
to say that she is at present in Coimbra, having travelled with us under
the charge of some Portuguese ladies, friends of Herrara."
"You don't mean to say that you persuaded the bishop to let her out of the
convent?"
"Scarcely," Terence laughed, "though the bishop did unwittingly aid me."
"I congratulate you on getting her out," the colonel said.
"Travers was telling us the day after you left what a curious coincidence
it was that the nun who threw him out a letter should turn out to be a
cousin of yours. Will you tell us how you managed it?"
"I don't mind telling it, sir, if all here will promise not to repeat it.
The Bishop of Oporto is a somewhat formidable person, and were he to lodge
a complaint against me he might get me into serious trouble, and is
perfectly capable of having me stabbed some dark night in the streets of
Lisbon; therefore, I think it would be as well to omit any details of the
share he played in the matter. Without that the story is simple enough.
Having got a boat with two men in it at the end of the street in which
stood the convent, I went there in the dress of an ecclesiastic, just as
the French burst into the town.
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