"Oh, Jack, Jack," she said, "you don't know how glad I am to see you!"
"Has that hound been bullying you?"
"Bullying! He dare not. I am not a child! But listen, amigo mio; he came to ask me to marry him. He did! He had the audacity! You should have seen him—heard him—his nasty oily voice; oh, he seemed to be quite sure that he had only to ask! 'And you think of marriage at this fearful time!' I said. And he wanted me to believe that he was thinking only of my safety. When the town falls, he said, I shall want a protector. 'And you, one of Palafox's hussars, how can you protect me?' And then he smiled, and spoke in dark hints of some special power he will have, and I grew angry, and asked whether he meant to turn afrancesado, and then—and then you came, Jack, and I wondered what he would do; and—and he went, and I couldn't help remembering the time when you and I were so terribly afraid of him, and—oh, Jack, it was magnificent—it was indeed!"
Juanita laughed, and Jack himself smiled at the recollection of Miguel's undignified exit.
"But, Juanita," he said, "I came to warn you."
"Against him?"
"No; against the danger you run in staying here. The French are coming nearer every hour; almost at any moment they may reach the Coso. They are driving their mines steadily towards the centre of the city. You must find a place—I can't call it a home—elsewhere."
"But, Jack, that is arranged already. Padre Consolacion is going to take us to a house near the Porta Portillo to-morrow. What do you think?—the padre came to see me only a minute or two after you left the other day."
"Was that the Padre Consolacion? I saw a benevolent-looking priest enter as I went out."
"Yes. And, only think, he wanted me to marry Miguel!"