All this was spoken with a cold, dry, steady voice, very different to what a father ought to have employed, whose daughter had just miraculously escaped death. The young officer did not know what to think of his real or feigned indifference. It was only Spanish hauteur. The Duke loved his daughter as much as his proud and ambitious nature allowed him to do, but he would have been ashamed to let it be seen, especially by a stranger. "Sir," the Duke resumed a moment later, as he stepped aside to display the gentlemen who accompanied him, "I have the honour of presenting to you my cousin and friend, Count Don Stenio de Bejar y Sousa." The two gentlemen bowed to each other. The Count had no motive to maintain an incognito, and saw that the moment had arrived to make himself known. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am Count Ludovic de Barmont Senectaire, Captain in the Navy, and commanding the French frigate the _Erigone_, now anchored in Algeciras Bay." On hearing the Count's name pronounced, the Duke's face turned frightfully pale; he frowned till his eyebrows joined, and he gave him a strangely meaning glance. But this emotion did not last longer than a flash: by a violent effort of the will the Spaniard thrust back to the bottom of his heart, the feelings that agitated him; his previous impassiveness returned to his face, and he bowed with a smile. The ice was broken between the three gentlemen, for they saw they were equals; their manner at once changed, and they became as affable as they had at first been stiff and reserved. The Duke was the first to renew the conversation in the most friendly voice. "You are doubtless taking advantage of the truce made a short time back, between our two nations, my lord, to visit our country?" "Pardon me, my lord Duke, I was not aware that hostilities had ceased between our two armies. I have been at sea for a long time, and without news of France; chance alone brought me to this coast a few hours ago, and I sought shelter in Algeciras Bay, to await a change of wind to pass the Straits." "I bless the accident, Count, since I owe to it my daughter's safety." Doña Clara had opened her eyes, and, though still very weak, she was beginning to account for the position in which she found herself. "Oh," she said, in a soft and humorous voice, and with an inward shudder, "had it not been for that gentleman, I should be dead!" and she attempted to smile, while fixing on the young man her large eyes full of tears, with an expressive gratitude it is impossible to describe. "How do you feel, my daughter?" the Duke asked. "I am quite well, now, I thank you, papa," she replied; "when I felt that Moreno no longer obeyed the bit, and was running away, I believed myself lost, and terror caused me to faint; but where is my poor Moreno?" she added a moment after, "Has any misfortune happened to him?"