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, shading his eyes with his hand, and musing painfully on the events of the preceding two years. His estates confiscated, his health destroyed, separated from his only surviving child, and her fate unknown to him, himself a prisoner--such were the results of his blind devotion to a worthless prince and a falling principle. Great, indeed, was the change which physical and mental suffering had wrought in the Conde de Villabuena. His form was bowed and emaciated, his cheek had lost its healthful tinge; his hair, in which, but a short three months previously, only a few silver threads were perceptible, telling of the decline of life rather than of its decay, now fell in grey locks around his sunken temples. For himself individually, the Count grieved not; he had done what he deemed his duty, and his conscience was at rest; but he mourned the ingratitude of his king and party, and, above all, his heart bled at the thought of his daughter, abandoned friendless and helpless amongst strangers. The news of the preceding day's battle had reached him, but he took small interest in it; he foresaw that many more such fights would be fought, and countless lives be sacrificed, before peace would revisit his unhappy and distracted country.