undertaking is intolerable. All I desire, all I am sure he desires,
is his freedom. There are those, powerful and well equipped, who can
secure it. They do not belong to the so-called Rojas faction. You, we
understand, have much influence in its counsels. We know that to carry
out its plans you have quarrelled with your father, resigned from his
company. If I venture to refer to your private affairs, it is only
because I understand you yourself have spoken of them publicly, and
because they show me that in your allegiance, in your mistaken
allegiance to my husband, you are in earnest. But, in spite of your
wish to serve him, I have asked you here to-day to beg you and your
friends to relinquish your purpose. His wife and his children feel
that the safety of General Rojas is in other hands, in the hands of
those who have his fullest confidence and mine." In her distress,
Senora Rojas leaned forward. "I beg of you," she exclaimed, "do as I
ask. Leave my husband to me and to his friends. What you would do can
only interfere with them. And it may lead directly to his death."

She paused, and, with her eyes fixed eagerly on Roddy's face, waited
for his answer. The men standing in a group behind her nodded
approvingly. Then they also turned to Roddy and regarded him sternly,
as though challenging him to resist such an appeal. Roddy found his
position one of extreme embarrassment. He now saw why Senora Rojas had
received him in the presence of so large an audience. It was to render
a refusal to grant her request the more difficult. In the group drawn
up before him he saw that each represented a certain interest, each
held a distinctive value. The two daughters were intended to remind
him that it was against a united family he was acting; Caldwell was to
recall to him that he was opposing the wishes of his father, and Vega
and the two officers naturally suggested to whom Senora Rojas referred
when she said her interests were in the hands of powerful and
well-equipped friends. Should he tell the truth and say that of the
plans of the Rojas faction he knew little or nothing, Roddy was sure
he would not be believed. He was equally certain that if, in private,
he confided his own plan to Senora Rojas and told her that within the
next forty-eight hours she might hope to see her husband, she would at
once acquaint Vega and Caldwell with that fact. And, after the
confidence made him by Caldwell, what he and Vega might not do to keep