The sound was music in my ears, for it told me how for the moment at least my coming had eased her misery. At length she began to stir again in my arms; not away from them, I thanked Heaven, but as though the sense of relieved happiness was passing, and the thoughts of trouble were gathering force again. "I am shamed, Ferdinand," she murmured. "I love you, sweetheart," was my whispered reply. "How did you come here, and alone?" she asked next, after a pause, "You have caught me in my moment of weakness." "I will tell you all presently," I said. "I have come to help you. Wait." But her curiosity was rising as her composure returned. "Tell me now." "I knew you would be in trouble, dearest, and I followed you." "But how did you find me?" and then a great and sudden change came over her. "What am I doing? I am mad," she cried in a quick tone of alarm; and drawing swiftly from my arms she stood, my hands still holding hers, and looked at me with fear in her face. "You must not stay here. You are in danger, Ferdinand. There are those coming here, will be here instantly may be, who will know you and—oh God, what shall we do? they will kill you." The fear was for me, and had quickened her into active thought, as no fear for herself had done. I guessed her meaning instinctively, and allayed the fear. "No, there is no danger. You mean the two men, Cabrera and Garcia. I came here with them, and Cabrera himself urged me, in his last words, to try and save you." "But they—I can’t understand. How could that be?" she cried, her face a mask of perplexity. "Simply as I say. I recognised them, but they did not recognise me. I made myself known to them—as Ferdinand Carbonnell—in the train; we escaped from it together at Calatayud, and together we have ridden here. We were going to Daroca, when we heard that you were here, and that the roads were blocked with troops, and we came here." "You were going to Daroca? Are you mad, too, Ferdinand?" "Mad, if you will; or very sane, as I prefer. I was going to find you, Sarita. Do you think anything would have stopped me? I went where love called me." "But nothing could have saved your being discovered—nothing—and your death would have been certain. This was rank madness." "Had I not heard you were here, I should have been in Daroca at this minute, searching for you, Sarita." Her hands tightened on mine, and her eyes were full of pain; but their light changed suddenly and grew radiant, and the soft colour streamed over her face. "And you love me so well as that?" The question, the tone, the love in her eyes, the wondrous magic of her beauty, thrilled my every nerve and set my heart pulsing with passion; and for answer I drew her, now unresisting, to me, and pressed my lips to hers.