Rojas off the boards, he did not care to think. He certainly did not
deem it safe to test their loyalty. He, therefore, determined that as
it was impossible to tell his opponents the truth, he had better let
them continue to believe he was a leader in the Rojas party, and that,
with it, his only purpose was an open attack upon the fortress.

"I need not say," protested Roddy gravely, "that I am greatly
flattered by your confidence. It makes me very sorry that I cannot be
equally frank. But I am only a very unimportant member of the great
organization that has for its leader General Rojas----"

"And I," interrupted Senora Rojas, "am the wife of that leader. Are my
wishes of no weight?"

"I fear, madame," begged Roddy, in deprecatory tones, "that to
millions of Venezuelans General Rojas is considered less as the
husband than as the only man who can free this country from the hands
of a tyrant."

At this further sign of what seemed fatuous obstinacy, Senora Rojas
lost patience.

"A tyrant!" she exclaimed quickly. "I must protest, Mr. Forrester,
that the word comes strangely from one who has denounced my husband as
a traitor."

The attack confused Roddy, and to add to his discomfort it was greeted
by the men in the rear of Senora Rojas with a chorus of approving
exclamations. Roddy raised his eyes and regarded them gravely. In a
tone of stern rebuke Senora Rojas continued:

"We have been frank and honest," she said, "but when we cannot tell
whether the one with whom we treat runs with the hare or the hounds,
it is difficult."

Again from the men came the murmur of approval, and Roddy, still
regarding them, to prevent himself from speaking pressed his lips
tightly together.

Knowing how near Senora Rojas might be to attaining the one thing she
most desired, his regret at her distress was genuine, and that, in her
ignorance, she should find him a most objectionable young man he could
well understand. The fact aroused in him no resentment. But to his
secret amusement he found that the thought uppermost in his mind was
one of congratulation that Inez Rojas was more the child of her
Venezuelan father than of her American mother. Even while he deeply
sympathized with Senora Rojas, viewed as a future mother-in-law, she
filled him with trepidation. But from any point he could see no health
in continuing the scene, and he rose and bowed.

"I am sorry," he said, "but I cannot find that any good can come of
this. I assur