"How gravely judicial and impartial you would be," she retorted. "But I can go even farther. I can put my good aunt’s case with greater force than she would put it, I am sure, and yet be confident. I am a Carlist; I am saturated with a love of liberty; I am in league with many dangerous men; I am fighting against a hopelessly powerful antagonist; I am steering a course that aims at achieving ideal happiness for my country, but much more probably may achieve nothing but utter shipwreck for myself; I have an unruly ambition; I am learning to be a man; to think of, hope for, work for the objects of men; I am daring to lead where I should scarcely venture to follow; I am even mad enough to take ideals to my heart and to strive for them; and this best of women believes that in daring to take a man’s part I run a risk of ceasing to be a woman. She would have me lay down the task, break with my ideals, leave my country to those who now misrule it, and fly—to safety. Do you think I should do this? or if I _should_, that I shall?" "Before I answer I will hear your own side," I said, quietly. "Ah, there spoke an Englishman—a man with a microscope, to examine, try, inspect, measure, and compare this with that, and that with this, before you venture an opinion. What a wonderful thing is English discretion. But you shall hear it." Madame Chansette rose at that, and Sarita rose too, and took her arm tenderly and, as it were, protectingly. "I will leave you. Sarita will speak freely, Mr. Carbonnell; but remember she is steering for shipwreck—her own words." They went away together then, and presently Sarita came back alone. "You will think ours a strange household and a stranger partnership. But for all our conventionality we love each other as if we were mother and daughter; and I know how much I make that dear heart suffer at times." She paused, and then said: "And so you are the real Ferdinand Carbonnell. You were surprised to find your name so well known in Madrid? To me amongst others?" "Tell me what that means," I said. "It is your own name used intentionally," was the somewhat startling reply. "My own name? Used by whom?" "There is no other Ferdinand Carbonnell in all Spain than yourself. You are, as I say, the real Ferdinand Carbonnell." She looked at my puzzled face with a half whimsical, half doubting expression, and then burst into one of her sweet, musical, witching laughs. "You shall know everything," she said. *CHAPTER V* *THE EXPLANATION* Sarita did not speak for some time but sat with a very thoughtful look on her face which she turned now and again toward me, as though some point in her reverie had been reached which concerned me and made her doubtful. "Yes, I am sorry, deeply sorry, and would undo it if I could!" she exclaimed at last, giving an impulsive utterance to her thoughts, and then jumping up and pacing the floor.