Henceforth Maseden concentrated all his faculties on the successful performance of the trick which might win him clear of the castle of San Juan. Nothing in the wide world mattered less to him than that the newly-made bride should stoop to sign the register after he had done so, or that by turning to address Steinbaum he was deliberately throwing away the opportunity thus afforded of learning her surname.
When an avowed enemy first broached the subject of this extraordinary marriage, he had made a bitter jest on the use in real life of a well-worn histrionic situation. And now, perforce, he had become an actor of rare merit. Each look, each word must lead up to the grand climax. The penalty of failure was not the boredom of an audience, but death; such a “curtain” would sharpen the dullest wits, and Maseden, if wholly innocent of stage experience hitherto, was not dull.
.....
He slackened pace, took a shorter grip of the reins, and loosened the revolver in its case. Flight was ridiculous, unless he made across country; a last resource, involving a fatal loss of time.
He took nothing for granted. Steinbaum was one of the half-dozen car-owners in Cartagena, and this was surely he, escorting Señor Porilla and the lady back to the town.
