Hilary certainly could not make anything very good out of this. And cheerful though his nature was, and tolerably magnanimous, he could not be expected to enjoy the treatment he had met with. To be knocked down and robbed was bad enough; to be disgraced was a great deal worse; but to be cut out by a rival, betrayed into his power, and made to pay for his wedding with trust-money belonging to poor soldiers,--all this was enough to embitter even the sweet and kind nature of young Lorraine. Therefore his face was unlike itself, as he turned it away from the young Spanish lady, being much taken up with his own troubles, and not yet ready to make light of them. “Will you not speak to me, Senhor? I am not in any way guilty of this. I would have surrendered the whole of my life----” “I pray you to pardon me,” Hilary answered. “I am not accustomed to this sort of thing. Where are they now? Can I follow them?” “Even a Spaniard could not find them. My brothers would not attempt it. Alcides knows every in and out. He has hidden his prize in the mountains of the north.” “If that is so, I can only hasten to say farewell to the Spanish land.” “To go away, and to never come back! Is it possible that you could do that?” “It may be a bitter thing; but I must try. I am now on my way to Malaga. Being discharged from the British army, I have only to find my own way home.” “It cannot be; it never can be! Our officers lose a mule’s-load of money, or spend it at cards; and we keep them still. Senhor Captain, you must have made some mistake. They never could discharge you!” “If there has been any mistake,” said Hilary, regaining his sweet smile, with his sense of humour, “it is on their part, not on mine. Discharged I am; and the British army, as well as the Spanish cause, must do their best to get on without me.” “Saints of heaven! And you will go, and never come back any more?” “With the help of the saints, that is my hope. What other hope is left to me?” Camilla de Montalvan did not answer this question with her lips, but more than answered it with her eyes. She fell back suddenly, as if with terror, into a great blue velvet chair, and her black tresses lay on her snowy arms, although her shapely neck reclined. Then with a gentle sigh, as if recovering from a troubled dream, she raised her eyes to Hilary’s, and let them dwell there long enough to make him wonder where he was. And he saw that he had but to speak the word to become the owner of grace and beauty, wealth, and rank in the Spanish army, and (at least for a time) true love.