"Dolores and I are greatly in your debt," Alaire told him.
"But you stayed so long!"
"There was more work than I thought. General, you have ruined me."
Longorio was pained; his face became ineffably sad. "Please! I beg of you," he entreated. "I have arranged for reparation of that miserable mistake. You shall see what I have done. With your own eyes you shall read the furious correspondence I have carried on with the minister. Together you and I shall manage a settlement, and you will find that I am a friend indeed!"
"I hope so."
"Have I not proved it? Am I not ready to give you my life?" the general queried, earnestly. "Fix the damages at your own figure and I shall see that you receive justice. If the government will not pay, I will. I have means; I am not a poor man. All I possess would be too little to buy your happiness."
"You embarrass me. I'm afraid you don't realize what you say." Alaire remained cool under the man's protestations. "I have lost more than a thousand head of cattle."
"We shall say two, three thousand, and the government will pay," Longorio asserted, brazenly. "I will vouch for your figures, and no one will question them, for I am a man of honor."
"No! All I want—"
"It is done. Let us say no more about the affair. Señora, I have thought of you every hour; the duties that held me in Nuevo Pueblo were like irksome chains. I was in madness. I would have flown to La Feria but—I could not."