in exchange for his liberty.

When these terms, so unexpectedly favourable, were communicated to the
Count, he lost no time in addressing a letter to Don Carlos, informing
him of his position, and requesting him to fulfil that portion of the
conditions depending on him, by liberating the Christino officers. With
shattered health, he could not hope, he said, again to render his
Majesty services worth the naming; his prayers would ever be for his
success, but they were all he should be able to offer, even did an
unconditional release permit him to rejoin his sovereign. In the same
letter he implored Don Carlos to watch over the safety of his daughter,
and cause her to be conducted to France under secure escort. This letter
dispatched, by the medium of a flag of truce, the Count sought and
obtained permission to remove to the town of Logrono, where an old
friend, the Marquis of Mendava, had offered him an asylum till his fate
should be decided upon.

Long and anxiously did the Count await a reply to his letter, but weeks
passed without his receiving it. Three days before the battle of
Mendigorria, the Christino army passed through Logrono on its way
northwards, and the Count had the pleasure of a brief visit from
Herrera. A few hours after the troops had again marched away, a courier
arrived from Vittoria, bringing the much wished-for answer. It was cold
and laconic, written by one of the ministers of Don Carlos. Regret was
expressed for the Count's misfortune, but that regret was apparently not
sufficiently poignant to induce the liberation of two important
prisoners, in order that a like favour might be extended to one who
could no longer be of service to the Carlist cause.

Although enveloped in the verbiage and complimentary phrases which the
Spanish language so abundantly supplies, the real meaning of the
despatch was evident enough to Count Villabuena. Courted when he could
be of use, he was now, like a worthless fruit from which pulp and juice
had been expressed, thrown aside and neglected. It was a bitter pang to
his generous heart to meet such ingratitude from the prince whom he had
so much loved, and for whose sake he had made enormous sacrifices. To
add to his grief, the only answer to his request concerning his daughter
was a single line, informing him that she had left Segura several weeks
previously, and that her place of abode was unknown.

Depressed and heartsick, the Count lay back in his chair, shadin