It was for HIM to remove all obstacles--to prevail upon her to leave this place and return to America with him as her husband, the guardian of her good name, and the custodian of her secret.

At times the strains of a dreamy German waltz, played in the distance, brought back to him the brief moment that his arm had encircled her waist by the crumbling wall, and his pulses grew languid, only to leap firmer the next moment with more desperate resolve.

He would win her, come what may! He could never have been in earnest before: he loathed and hated himself for his previous passive acquiescence to her fate.

He had been a weak tool of the colonel's from the first: he was even now handicapped by a preposterous promise he had given him! Yes, she was right to hesitate--to question his ability to make her happy! He had found her here, surrounded by stupidity and cupidity--to give it no other name--so patent that she was the common gossip, and had offered nothing but a boyish declaration! As he strode into the hotel that night it was well that he did not meet the unfortunate colonel on the staircase! It was very late, although there was still visible a light in Yerba's salon, shining on her balcony, which extended before and included his own window.

From time to time he could hear the murmur of voices.