"I cannot understand why the Bourbons never take them," answered Marcos. For he was not a pushing man, but one of those patient waiters on opportunity who appear at length quietly at the top, and look down with thoughtful eyes at those who struggle below. The sweat and strife of some careers must tarnish the brightest lustre. Father and son drove together to the apartment in a street high above the town, near the church of San José where the Sarrions lived when in Madrid, and there Sarrion gave Marcos further details of that strange adventure which Amedeo of Spain was about to begin. In return Marcos vouchsafed a brief account of affairs in the valley of the Wolf. He never had much to say and even in these stirring times told of a fine harvest; of that brilliant weather which marked the year of the Napoleonic downfall. "And Juanita?" inquired Sarrion at length. "Is at Pampeluna. They cannot get her away from there without my knowing it. She is well ... and happy." "You have not written to her?" "No," answered Marcos. "We must remember," said Sarrion, with a nod of approval, "that we are dealing with the cleverest men in the world, and the greediest----" "And the hardest pressed," added Marcos. "But you have not written to her?" "No." "Nor heard from her?" "I had a note from her at Saragossa, before they moved her to Pampeluna," answered Marcos with a smile. "It was rather badly spelt." "And...?" asked Sarrion. Marcos did not reply to this comprehensive interrogation. "You have come to some decision?" Sarrion suggested. "I have come to the usual decision that you are quite right in your suspicions. They want that money, and they intend to get it by forcing her into religion and inducing her to sign the usual testament made by nuns, conferring all their earthly goods upon the order into which they are admitted." Then Sarrion went back to his original question. "And...?" "As soon as we see signs of their being likely to succeed I propose to see Juanita again." "You can do it despite them?" "Yes, I can do it." "And...?" "I shall explain the position to her--that her bad fortune has given her choice of two evils." "That is one way of putting it." "It is the only honest way." Sarrion shrugged his shoulders. "My friend," he said, "I do not think that love and honesty are much in sympathy." CHAPTER XII IN A STRONG CITY Amedeo, as the world knows, landed at Carthagena to be met by the news that Prim was dead. The man who had summoned him hither to assume the crown, he who alone in all Spain had the power and the will to maintain order in the riven kingdom, had himself been summoned to appear before a higher throne. "There will be no republic in Spain while I live," Prim had often said. And Prim was dead.