came here to claim your promise, you
would reply, would you not, that friendship alone, not love, had drawn
you towards him, and that your hand, promised when you hardly knew what
you did, would now be given without your heart?"

"Yes, that is what I should answer; but he is not likely to come here,
Stephano."

"And what if he were here already?" asked an impressive voice.

Don Pedro at the same time stepped forward between the young people, and
before the severe face of the Spaniard their eyes drooped.

"Father!" faltered the young man.

"Silence!" cried the old man. "Your duty is clear. What if Dulaurier
were in the house, Rosita--what if, more faithful than you, he had come
to claim his promise, made at the death-bed of your father? I ask you
what you would answer."

Trembling and submissive as a criminal before his judge, the young girl
turned her eyes from Stephano to Don Pedro.

"I should reply to Lieutenant Dulaurier that, before God and man, I am
his betrothed bride, and that while he lives no other can be my
husband."

"Come then, my child, prepare to receive your _fiance_," and Don Pedro
held out his hand to his niece to lead her away.

"You are destroying my happiness!" cried Stephano.

"But in return I give you back your honour," replied Don Pedro. "Look
after the lieutenant, for here come the guerillas!" and he went out.

"What a dream, and what an awakening!" murmured Stephano as he was left
alone. "Rosita vows she loves me, and at the same time declares she will
never be mine while Dulaurier lives. _While he lives!_ And I must take
upon myself the peril of saving him, when I have only to let him----Oh,
how despair tempts us to horrible deeds! Is there time to fly, to quit
this spot where each thought is torture: to hasten and join the
guerillas before they enter the house? For, alas! if they enter now and
demand where their enemy is--by Heaven! I shall not have the strength to
resist--I must fly!"

Picking up his gun and pistols he rushed towards the door, but recoiled
at the sight of a man in the uniform of a captain of guerillas, who by a
gesture forced him to pause.

[Illustration: "IT IS TOO LATE!"]

"Malediction--it is too late!" murmured the young man, as he dropped
upon a chair, and let his unheeded weapons fall to the ground.

"Two sentinels before each door and window," called out the captain to
the soldiers who followed him. "This is the last house in which our
prisoner could