"Come, you naughty child, I see I must do what you please, though I confess it is a heavy sacrifice. Well, I will try. It will not depend on me whether you see the man you love again."
"Oh, father! can it be possible?" she exclaimed with a joy she could not restrain. "Are you speaking seriously?"
"Most seriously, wicked one; so dry your tears—re-assume your gaiety and your bright colour of former days."
"Then I shall see him again?"
"I swear it to you."
"Here?"
"Yes, here, at Guaymas."
"Oh!" she exclaimed impetuously, as she threw her arms round his neck and embraced him tenderly, at the same time melting into tears. "Oh, how kind you are, my father, and how I will love you if you do that!"
"I will do it, I tell you," he said, affected, in spite of himself, by this love so true and so passionate.
The general had already arranged his scheme in his head—the scheme which we shall soon see unfolded in all its hideousness. Of the reply his daughter had made him Don Sebastian only remembered one sentence: "So long as the count lives I will remain faithful to him."