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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 receive your fiancé," 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.

"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 take refuge," he continued, striking impatiently the butt end of his rifle upon the ground. "Search well, comrades; you know he who takes the Frenchman prisoner is to have the honour of firing the first shot upon him, and is also to receive twenty douros for reward." Thereupon he advanced into the room. "Well, my good fellow," he said to Stephano; "what are you going to do with these weapons? Are they to defend yourself or to protect the officer whom you have hidden here?"

"No one is hidden in this house," replied the young man, with the courage which peril bestows. "The La Sargas are known throughout the country to be devoted to Spain and and the Queen. I have three brothers in the national army, and I have just picked up these weapons with the intention of joining your troops."

The captain looked at him with a sneering smile. Then he turned to his companions, who had just returned from searching the house.

"Well, have you found anything?"

"Only a young girl and an old man," was the reply.

"Bring the old man here," said the captain; then he turned to Stephano. "And you, sir, go with my lieutenant and these three men, and show them every room there is"; then he murmured in the lieutenant's ear,