ntent."

The Marquise trembled with hope; but when she leant toward her husband,
and heard--she who was a mother--the horrible confidence whispered by
Clara, she swooned away. Juanito understood all; he leapt up like a lion
in its cage. After obtaining an assurance of perfect submission from the
Marquis, Victor took upon himself to send away the soldiers. The servants
were led out, handed over to the executioner, and hanged. When the family
had no guard but Victor to watch them, the old father rose, and said,
"Juanito."

Juanito made no answer except by a movement of the head, equivalent to a
refusal; then he fell back in his seat, and stared at his parents with
eyes dry and terrible to look upon. Clara went and sat on his knee, put
her arm round his neck, and kissed his eyelids.

"My dear Juanito," she said gaily, "if thou didst only know how sweet
death would be to me if it were given by thee, I should not have to endure
the odious touch of the headsman's hands. Thou wilt cure me of the woes
that were in store for me--and, dear Juanito, thou couldst not bear to
see me belong to another, well----" Her soft eyes cast one look of fire at
Victor, as if to awaken in Juanito's heart his horror of the French.

"Have courage," said his brother Felipe, "or our race, that has almost
given kings to Spain, will be extinct."

Suddenly Clara rose, the group which had formed round Juanito separated,
and this son, dutiful in his disobedience, saw his aged father standing
before him, and heard him cry, in a solemn voice, "Juanito, I command
thee."

The young count remained motionless. His father fell on his knees before
him; Clara, Manuel, and Felipe did the same instinctively. They all
stretched out their hands to him as to one who was to save their family
from oblivion; they seemed to repeat their father's words--"My son, hast
thou lost the energy, the true chivalry of Spain? How long wilt thou leave
thy father on his knees? What right hast thou to think of thine own life
and its suffering? Madame, is this a son of mine?" continued the old man,
turning to his wife.

"He consents," cried she in despair. She saw a movement in Juanito's
eyelids, and she alone understood its meaning.

Mariquita, the second daughter, still knelt on her knees, and clasped her
mother in her fragile arms; her little brother Manuel, seeing her weeping
hot tears, began to chide her. At this moment the almoner of the castle
came in; he was immediately