"I offer you this door," Don Abrahan said, unheeding her defiance. "I trust in my heart you will accept the exit from this most grave situation. Let this compact between you and my son continue, let us proceed at once to the priest and celebrate the marriage. My son has begged me to offer you this out of the manly love he bears you, Helena, and from no other consideration. Accept, and you will be relieved of this taint of treason. It will be an easy matter in such case to place the burden of guilt where it belongs, on the head of the traitor who involved you in this, innocently, we----" "Roberto, forgive me!" Helena begged, turning to the young man impulsively, a light in her eyes that he never had seen before. "I have misjudged you. You must have a true, an honorable affection for me to offer me this." "May God judge between us!" said Roberto, with such feeling that his words trembled on his lips. "There is something in you better than I knew," she confessed, the honesty of her nature not permitting the covering of one little spark of gratitude. "I thought all the time you were anxious only to have my money and my lands, but this--but this I----" "The lands? Curse them! The gold? Sink it in hell!" Roberto said, flinging his arms wide, his head thrown back in his dramatic fervor. "Forgive me if I have wronged you by word or thought, Roberto. There is much in you that is manly, much, I am sure, that is good. I owe you the confession of that much. But the compact cannot be renewed. We stand parted, never to unite. I would not buy my life with the betrayal of a friend." "Think--" Roberto began to plead. "What a cowardly thing it would be," she seemed to conclude for him, but with a far different thought. "If you refuse, it means loss of your estate, degradation, imprisonment, perhaps death," Don Abrahan warned. "Let it be so, then. I do refuse." "What is this man, this alien who plays citizen for the purpose of introducing the enemy into this country, to you?" Roberto asked, perplexed, baffled, not able to understand. "Let him bear the blame, as he deserves to bear it. Nobody will believe you guilty." "But I am guilty," she said, proud in the confession. "I have prayed for this war, I have prayed for the day when the United States army would march into this land and----" "Silence!" Don Abrahan commanded in stern, loud voice. "The cruelties and injustices, the oppression of the strong, the misery of the poor--all this would come to an end, all of it will come to an end, when the United States army marches here!" "Helena Sprague, as a magistrate of the republic I arrest you on the charge of treason," Don Abrahan solemnly declared. "I seize your lands and properties in the name of the republic; I lay hold upon your cattle, your goods, your money, your effects, in the name of the republic. Such as spurn mercy when it is offered, must burn in the fire of justice."