The masterfulness of my love conquered her, and with a low cry she broke away, sank into a seat near, and sat trembling, her face hidden in her hands. Love’s instinct prompted me then to act, while my passion mastered her. I placed my arms about her, lifted her to her feet, took her hands from her face and kissed her. "Do you think I will lose you, Sarita, in the very moment our love has spoken." At the touch of my lips she trembled violently, and with a cry of love, she wound her arms round my neck. As her head found love’s shelter on my shoulder, my passion burst all control and found expression in a lava of words, hot, burning, incoherent, tumultuous and vehement, poured forth in the delirious madness of the moment of love’s triumph. We were standing there, still passion-locked, when a most unwelcome interruption came. The door was opened, and Colonel Juan Livenza was shown into the room. He stopped on the threshold, his face livid with the rage that blazed up in his eyes at what he saw, and struggling for an instant to regain sufficient self-control to trust himself to speak, he said in a voice husky and hoarse with rage: "Your pardon; my arrival is inopportune;" and with a bow and a look of deadly hate and menace at me, he went out and closed the door behind him. Sarita, who had drawn herself hurriedly from my arms, turned pale and gazed at the shut door, trembling with agitation and distress. "I have sown passion, and the harvest will be death," she murmured, repeating my words. "Heaven have mercy upon us." "Or upon him," I answered. "But we need not take it quite so seriously. Come, sweetheart," and I held out my arms to her. "No, no, no. It can never be, Ferdinand. I was mad," she cried distractedly. "It was a very sweet madness, and shall last our lifetime," I answered, but she would not let me place my arm round her again. "As you will," I said, gently. "The knowledge of your love is all in all to me. The rest I can trustfully leave to time." "You must go, Ferdinand. I forgot that he was coming this afternoon. You have made me forget everything. Oh, I am mad. Now, all may be lost." The words jarred. "Lost," I cried; and then a sudden divination of her meaning and of Livenza’s visit flashed into my mind. "He was coming, of course, for this business of the day after to-morrow—but you will abandon that now, Sarita?" "How did you know? Is it guess or knowledge?" and her startled eyes and parted lips told of her surprise. "I was with Quesada this morning," I answered, the words coming in obedience to an impulse that I could neither account for nor resist. "I am afraid of you, Ferdinand. How do you learn these things? How much do you know?"