CHAPTER.

  1. [The Victim of a Woman's Preference]
  2. [The Gate of Hazard]
  3. [Carlists]
  4. [Sarita Castelar]
  5. [The Explanation]
  6. ["Counting All Renegades Lovers of Satan"]
  7. [Sarita, the Carlist]
  8. [Sebastian Quesada]
  9. [The Quesada Version]
  10. [In London]
  11. ["The Ways of the Carlists Will be Hard"]
  12. [Sarita's Welcome]
  13. [The Fight]
  14. [A Coward's Story]
  15. [The Abduction]
  16. [After the Rescue]
  17. [War to the Knife]
  18. [At the Opera House]
  19. [A Carlist Gathering]
  20. [At the Hotel De l'Opera]
  21. [Sarita's Flight]
  22. [An Unexpected Meeting]
  23. [News of Sarita]
  24. [A Check]
  25. [At Calvarro's]
  26. [The Plea of Love]
  27. [Sarita Hears the Truth]
  28. [How Luck Can Change]
  29. [Quesada Again]
  30. [Suspense]
  31. [At the Palace]
  32. [Livenza's Revenge]
  33. [The Hut on the Hillside]
  34. [A King's Riddle]

SARITA,
THE CARLIST

CHAPTER I

THE VICTIM OF A WOMAN'S PREFERENCE

If A won't marry B, ought C to be exiled?

Stated in that bald fashion the problem looks not unlike an equation that has lost caste and been relegated to a nonsense book, or lower still, to some third-rate conundrum column. And yet it was the real crux of a real situation, and meant everything to me, Ferdinand Carbonnell, the victim of a woman's preference.

It came about in this way. The Glisfoyle peerage, as everyone knows, is only a poor one, and originality not being a strong point with us, Lascelles, my elder and only brother, having taken counsel with my father, fell back upon the somewhat worn device of looking out for a wife with money. He was not very successful in the quest, but at length a desirable quarry was marked down in the person of a Mrs. Abner B. Curwen, the young widow of an American millionaire; and great preparations were made to lure her into the net that was spread in the most open and unabashed manner before her very eyes.

But those eyes—bright, merry, and laughing—had a brain behind them that was practical and penetrating, and she saw the meshes quite plainly. She accepted the hospitality with pleasure, did her best to make a friend of my only sister, Mercy, was properly subdued, if not awed, in the presence of my father, and, in fact, did everything expected of her except the one thing—she would not let Lascelles make love to her, and completely out-manoeuvred him whenever he tried to bring matters to a head.

Moreover, a crisis of another kind was in the brewing. Mrs. Curwen herself was not an American, but a north-country Englishwoman, who had used her pretty looks and sharp wits to captivate the rich American, and she took Mercy into her confidence one day to an extent that had results.