"'Is it very wrong for a gentleman to ask for a secret meeting with a young lady if he is sixty-four years old, and she his niece? If I had gone to the house I should not have been admitted.' "'But how did you get here?' I asked. 'How did you get hold of Nina?' "'Her brother is a friend of mine. I sent a note to her through him.' "Every word of that talk is engraved on my mind. 'Sit down beside me,' he said. 'Let me look at you. How beautiful you are!' He said that you know; I merely repeat his words. 'And quite the glass of fashion, the mold of form! What have they taught you, my child, except how to dress well?' "When he asked me that I suddenly seemed inexpressibly ignorant to myself. 'Why--why, nothing much, I guess,' I stammered. He smiled such a dear smile. 'Oh, well, if you feel that you know nothing there is still hope for you.' "'I suppose you wonder what my errand is,' he went on, 'and now that I am here I scarcely know how to tell you. It was an impulse of the heart. I felt somehow as if my heart could not rest unless I saw you before I went away.' "'You are going away!' I cried, already experiencing the sinking sensation that one feels at the prospect of losing an old friend. 'They are driving you away!' I added, thinking of Francisco. "He smiled a different kind of smile. 'No, they are not driving me away. I go for Managuay.' "'Where?' "'To the United States. I sail on the _Alliança_ to-morrow. It is a dangerous errand from which I may not return.' "'Dangerous!' I cried like the foolish child I was, 'but there's no danger nowadays!' "He smiled and answered with another question. 'Do you know anything about me? what I stand for? what de Socotra stands for?' "'No,' I said, 'Francisco only abuses you. He tells us nothing.' "My uncle was silent for awhile. It was at this time that he took out the little black book and showed it to me, saying what I repeated to you night before last: 'The happiness of a whole people is bound up in this!' But he seemed to change his mind, and put it away without saying more. 'No, I shall not tell you,' he said, 'for if anything happens to me de Socotra would be your only protector. I dare not take the responsibility of setting you against him. I will only say this; that he opposes all I hold dear. And he would say the same of me I have no doubt.' "'I am so ignorant!' I murmured. "'Well, at twenty years old that is natural enough,' he said kindly, 'but at twenty-five, say, it will be different. God will never accept ignorance as an excuse from an adult. That was really my purpose in coming. I felt it my duty to my sister's child to make an effort to awaken you while I could.' He looked around at the luxuriant, perfectly-kept gardens. 'You would never awake in this castle of indolence.' "'But I am considered extremely wide awake,' I objected. "'I mean in your mind. It is time you thought of things.' "'What things?'