“The Church--the Archbishop--demand it,” del Torre hurried on, not looking at her, for he heard her exclamation. “I love you--well enough--to wed you.” The soldier’s voice broke, too feeble now to cry a charge. He never saw her look at him. God pardon him for looking down. “You love me--well enough to wed me----” She had turned red again, and her voice was low. He looked, and saw it. “I will keep you, and watch over you, Dolores, with my life. The Church demands it--I am but a soldier--will you marry me?” Her dark head was bowed, and the purple of her eyes he saw not. “Yes,” she said; but, oh, so gravely, so coldly! He bowed ceremoniously, and touched her hand to his lips; then he turned and left the stone-walled tropic garden. And as his sabre clanked in the passage-way, she threw herself on the hammock in a flood of tears. And that is how they were affianced. VIII. THE love of a man for a girl is perhaps different from any other passion our souls on earth are tempered with. Daphnis and Chloe are pretty, natural, charming to paint and write _vers de société_ about; but so simple as to be shallow, so natural as to be replaceable. To Daphnis, we know that any other Chloe will be Chloe too. And they are in reality selfish; they seek the consummation of their wishes: he his, she hers. It may be the same human energy; but in the fierce, almost blasphemous, self-abnegation of the man’s love, it seems as different a manifestation as the earth-rending power of freezing water from the swelling of a bud at spring. The man can renounce his love; but he desires her well-being with a will to which murder is an incident and the will divine but an obstacle to be overcome. The Archbishop had told del Torre that his nephew had been married already--secretly, but married--married to the woman who came to seek him out at the camp. Against this wall del Torre’s will had been beating in vain before his own betrothal to Dolores was announced. If she _could_ not marry Ramon, it might, indeed, be best she married him. But it was with a fierce suspicion he received his friends’ congratulations at his club and camp. Among his officers no other look or accent mingled with an unaffected joy. But in the city, he fancied--he was ever ready to fancy--among the young men, a shade of irony in their congratulations on his happiness. Was he not so old! Don Ramon heard of it from Jacinta. Jacinta was on the side of the younger man. She looked upon del Torre’s gray hairs with fierce eyes. Ramon’s liquid voice and peachy lip had fascinated this supple creature of the forest. Don Ramon heard; and his own answer was characteristic. “The old fool!” Jacinta nodded impatiently. She asked him for a message back. He took pen and paper and wrote: “SEÑORITA CONDESA: Thou lovest me. On the morning thou shalt wed Don Sebastian I kill him. “RAMON DEL TORRE.”