"You refer to Cousin Cleo--ah! what you said cannot be true--her regard for me is warm and cousinly, as mine is for her, but that is all." "And if it were true--if she did love you--devotedly with all her heart and soul, Senor Roderic?" "It would make no difference. I should deplore such an unfortunate occurrence deeply, on her account, for she is a noble woman in a million. But it would be utterly impossible for me to love another as I have you, Georgia." And he believed what he said, showing that he was sincere, at any rate. His words made her eyes glisten with delight, for who does not yearn to hear such phrases falling from the lips of an adored one. "You solemnly swear that is true?" she asked, willing to believe, yet filled with womanly doubts. "By everything sacred, by the memory of that happy past which my wretched jealousy slaughtered, by the grave of my revered mother I swear that I love and have loved no woman on earth but one, and she is before me." "Then you shall hear the condition upon which you may wipe out the past--upon which I shall again believe in you with all my heart and soul, and forget the cruel wrong you did me." "Name it, for Heaven's sake, Georgia. You shall see that I am in deadly earnest--that I abhor myself for the miserable way in which I fled from happiness and you. Yes, though it take me to the ends of the world, I shall go, proud to convince you that as once before I am above all others your _preux chevalier_. What would you have me do--all I ask is that it may not be to the prejudice of my beloved country for which I have sworn to stand to the death against all her foreign foes." "Find Leon for me!" It was a marvelously strange request and quite enough to stagger the man of whom the imperious demand was made. "Find Leon"--the lover must set out on a quest for another man--who was Leon, what relation did he bear the belle of San Juan, and where had he become lost since he needed a voyage of discovery made in his behalf--Jason, starting with his bold Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece might not have had half the trouble that would come of looking for a lost man in the world wilderness of to-day, since traveling facilities were limited in those times, whereas one may now readily fling thousands of leagues behind him in a fortnight. "Find Leon--for me!" Evidently Leon was of considerable importance to the speaker--her voice seemed to dwell upon the sound with much tenderness. But Roderic did not appear to be amazed on account of the name--it was something else that gave him cause for astonishment. "Senorita, I declared my readiness to go to the ends of the earth to serve you, but now you ask me to seek the shades beyond, the world of spirits. How then could I claim the reward even if success attended my endeavor?" "No, no, not that--you do not understand--it is Leon, my brother you are to find," breathlessly.