he
goes with you or stays here."

"Assuredly. Anything to escape this cave."

Miss Carmencita was at that moment reiterating her everlasting
determination to go wherever her father went. "If you think, sir,
that your faithlessness to him is a recommendation of your promised
faithfulness to me, I can only wish you more light on the feelings of a
daughter," she was informing Valdez, when her father slipped through the
panel door and stood before her.

"Brava, senorita!" he applauded, with subtle irony, clapping his hands.
"Brava, brava!"

That young woman swam blushingly toward him and let her face disappear
in an embrace.

"You see, one can't have everything, Senor Valdez," continued Megales
lightly. "For me, I cannot have both Chihuahua and my life; you, it
seems, cannot have both your successful revolution and my daughter."

"Your excellency, she loves me. Of that I am assured. It rests with
you to say whether her life will be spoiled or not. You know what I can
offer her in addition to a heart full of devotion. It is enough. Shall
she be sacrificed to her loyalty to you?" the young man demanded, with
all the ardor of his warm-blooded race.

"It is no sacrifice to love and obey my father," came a low murmur from
the former governor's shoulder.

"Since the world began it has been the law of life that the young should
leave their parents for a home of their own," Juan protested.

"So the Scripture says," agreed Megales sardonically. "It further
counsels to love one's enemies, but, I think, omits mention of the
enemies of one's father."

"Sir, I am not your enemy. Political exigencies have thrown us into
different camps, but we are not so small as to let such incidentals come
between us as a vital objection in such a matter."

"You argue like a lawyer," smiled the governor. "You forget that I am
neither judge nor jury. Tyrant I may have been to a fickle people
that needed a firm hand to rule them, but tyrant I am not to my only
daughter."

"Then you consent, your excellency?" cried Valdez joyously.

"I neither consent nor refuse. You must go to a more final authority
than mine for an answer, young man."

"But you are willing she should follow where her heart leads?"

"But certainly."

"Then she is mine," cried Valdez.

"I am not," replied the girl indignantly over her shoulder.

Megales turned her till her unconsenting eyes met his. "Do you want to
marry this young man, Carmencita?"

"I never tol