Captain Carroll fell back a few steps and gazed at her with a troubled face. "It is possible that you have misunderstood, Miss Saltonstall?" he faltered. "Do you still think it is Amita that I"--he stopped and added passionately, "Do you remember what I told you?--have you forgotten last night?" "Last night was--last night!" said Maruja, slightly lifting her shoulders. "One makes love at night--one marries in daylight. In the music, in the flowers, in the moonlight, one says everything; in the morning one has breakfast--when one is not asked to have councils of war with captains and commandantes. You would speak of my sister, Captain Car-roll--go on. Dona Amita Carroll sounds very, very pretty. I shall not object." She held out both her hands to him, threw her head back, and smiled. He seized her hands passionately. "No, no! you shall hear me--you shall understand me. I love YOU, Maruja--you, and you alone. God knows I can not help it--God knows I would not help it if I could. Hear me. I will be calm. No one can hear us where we stand. I am not mad. I am not a traitor! I frankly admired your sister. I came here to see her. Beyond that, I swear to you, I am guiltless to her--to you. Even she knows no more of me than that. I saw you, Maruja. From that moment I have thought of nothing--dreamed of nothing else." "That is--three, four, five days and one afternoon ago! You see, I remember. And now you want--what?" "To let me love you, and you only. To let me be with you. To let me win you in time, as you should be won. I am not mad, though I am desperate. I know what is due to your station and mine--even while I dare to say I love you. Let me hope, Maruja, I only ask to hope." She looked at him until she had absorbed all the burning fever of his eyes, until her ears tingled with his passionate voice, and then--she shook her head. "It can not be, Carroll--no! never!" He drew himself up under the blow with such simple and manly dignity that her eyes dropped for the moment. "There is another, then?" he said, sadly. "There is no one I care for better than you. No! Do not be foolish. Let me go. I tell you that because you can be nothing to me--you understand, to ME. To my sister Amita, yes." The young soldier raised his head coldly. "I have pressed you hard, Miss Saltonstall--too hard, I know, for a man who has already had his answer; but I did not deserve this. Good-by." "Stop," she said, gently. "I meant not to hurt you, Captain Carroll. If I had, it is not thus I would have done. I need not have met you here. Would you have loved me the less if I had avoided this meeting?" He could not reply. In the depths of his miserable heart, he knew that he would have loved her the same.