"You mean the old gentleman whom I saw yesterday? That stately, beautiful old man with the silver hair curling on his shoulders, and wearing the long black cloak?" Lynn said. "That's the man, but I wish you might have seen him in those days. He was just about as fiery as Alvarado, though in a slightly more civilized way, and he never wanted Alice to have anything to do with him. He never wanted the Spaniard around his house at all. No man like Colonel Fielding--English in every drop of blood--ever wants anything to do with any foreigner. But there's no use in trying to manage a girl like Alice Fielding,--a little, soft, say-nothing, characterless thing,--there's nothing in her strong enough to get a good firm hold on. She's blown like a feather this way and that way by the strongest influence--good or bad--that she falls under. You'll find the kind, and plenty of them, all over the world. The Fielding negroes used to say Alvarado threw a spell over Alice. I presume he did, but it was the spell which that sort of man always throws over that sort of girl. She was a flighty, vain little creature, and flattered of course by his being so madly in love. That was plain enough for anybody to see. Nobody ever doubted that he loved her. But she had never thought of marrying him until she was terrified into doing it. She was probably in love with John Stanley so far as she was capable of loving any man. It was said they were upon the verge of becoming engaged to be married. I don't know about that, but there was no doubt of John's loving her. It took him years to get over her marriage to Alvarado." "I don't understand. Why did she marry him?" asked Lynn.