"But surely you didn’t believe it?" added Juanita, with a touch of indignation. "Well, time works strange changes, you know." "Possibly," said Juanita, appreciating the retort; "but not so strange as that. Marry _him_!" Her gesture was imperial in its disdain. "Another of Miguel’s lies!" said Jack. "But," he added thoughtfully, "there was usually a motive behind them. What can it be this time? He gave me so many details; said it had all been arranged between your father and Don Esteban; he was to have the business; and all the rest of it." "Ridiculous! My father would have been the very last to think of such a thing. He distrusted him—with good cause." And then she proceeded to give Jack a narrative from which, as the tale was unfolded, he gained more than an inkling of Don Miguel’s designs. More than two years before, when Napoleon formed his alliance with Spain, Don Fernan Alvarez, a shrewd observer of events, had suspected that the ostensible object of despoiling Portugal was only a ruse by which the emperor intended to make himself master of the whole peninsula. Foreseeing a period of confusion and anarchy, the old merchant resolved to take time by the forelock and set his house in order. He went to Barcelona, the headquarters of the business, and proceeded to realize his stock as far as possible, with the intention of converting it into bullion or valuables which could be laid aside as a provision for his own declining years and his daughter’s future. On going into the accounts of the firm he found that Don Esteban Priego’s books showed large deficiencies, threatening to more than cover his interest, not a great one, in the business. When the matter was brought to light, Don Esteban was much distressed. He had been for some time in failing health, and had left the management of his branch almost entirely in the hands of his son Miguel, who, however, when brought to book by his father’s partner, indignantly protested against the implied charge of dishonesty, and declared that if there was anything wrong he at any rate was absolutely clean-handed. There was no time to investigate the matter fully. After a stormy interview Don Fernan left the office in charge of a trusted clerk, and, taking with him the large sum of money he had realized, together with the unsatisfactory books, set out for Saragossa a few days before Barcelona was seized by the French.