Mariano shook his head.
"You ask a very difficult thing again, tocaya," he said, "in which you run a great risk."
"Yes, if I fail; but I shall succeed."
"It would be better to give up this excursion."
"Confess at once," she said, impatiently, "that you do not wish to keep the promise you made me."
"You are unjust to me; I am only trying to dissuade you from an enterprise which you will repent when it is too late."
"That is my business, I repeat, Mariano," she continued, with a marked stress in her words; "it is not to gratify a caprice that I wish to see the hunter. I have reasons of the utmost importance for wishing to speak with him; and, to tell you all, he urged me to summon him under certain circumstances, and told me I need only apply to you in order to find him. Are you satisfied now? will you adhere to your doubts, and still refuse to accompany me?"
The young man had listened to Doña Marianna with earnest attention. When she had ended, he replied—"I no longer hesitate, niña; as things are so, I am bound to obey you. Still, I beg you not to make me responsible for any events that may happen."
"Whatever may occur, my kind Mariano, be assured that I shall be grateful to you for the immense service you have rendered me."
"And you wish to start at once?"