Time dragged by, and Howard found he must do something for a living. To one not accustomed to work this was no easy matter, but Howard was not the one to shrink from a responsibility. He could write fluently, and liked newspaper work, and it was not long before he attached himself to one of the large press associations of New York which furnish the news to several hundred newspapers throughout the land. Several especially good bits of reporting soon placed Howard at the head of the staff, and when the regular correspondent for the association was recalled from Cuba, for inefficiency and unreliability, Howard was immediately chosen to fill the vacant place at a salary of a hundred dollars per month, and all expenses paid. A fairly good salary in itself, yet it was but a small amount to one who had heretofore spent money with a lavish hand. Howard had great hopes of his trip to Cuba. Immediately on landing at Santiago he expected to call on Thomas Herringford, and obtain the full particulars of how his uncle's estate had been lost. He felt that at least something should be saved from the general wreck. Howard had been thinking of all these things, when chance, and the accident, threw him into the company of Estella Corona, and for the time being the vision of loveliness drove aught else from his mind. Never had he been smitten before, and now the keen shaft of Love sank deep into his heart. As he released her hand, his very soul seemed to go with it. Whether Estella felt something of what was passing in his mind, or whether it was his ardent gaze, bent full upon her, it would be difficult to say, but she blushed deeply, her dark face all aflame, making her look a hundred times more bewitching than ever. Then, as she turned her head for an instant, a look of pain and misery crossed her features. Evidently her girlish heart, full of careless joy to the outside world, carried some burden of secret sorrow. "And so you have been two years at Vassar," he went on. "And how do you like it in the States?" "Very much, indeed, señor," she replied. "Much better than among the creoles and blacks of my own country." "May I ask if you live at Santiago?" "We live at Marambo, papa and I. We have a large sugar plantation, and live there all alone, with the servants and the plantation help." "It must be lonely for you," he said, sympathetically. "It is--at times. But then, we have company, coming and going--old army friends of my father." "Then he is an army officer?" "He used to be a general in the Spanish Army, ten years ago. He is retired." "Ah, I see. No wonder, then, he sides with the royalty. I am afraid you will have a hard time to uphold your rebellious ideas in his presence."