"Ah! Señor, if you can manage that you will lift a great weight from my heart, and will do me a greater service than when you saved me from the English. Before this I greatly liked the Colonel Lopez, as a chief I never wish to find one whom I would follow with greater pleasure. This has been a great tribulation to all of us. Oh! Señor, save us if you can, the service you will do us is infinite." So saying, Venceslao reseated himself on his chair and bowing his face on his hands burst into tears, sobbing till his shoulders shook with the violence of his grief.
Evaña took two or three turns up and down the room, then coming back to Venceslao he again laid his hand on his shoulder.
"I am going to see Don Gregorio, the father of the Colonel, he is the only one who has any power over his son, stay here with Don Roderigo till I see you again"; so saying, Evaña turned from him and left the room.
In another room he found Don Roderigo and Doña Constancia, the latter held a handkerchief in her hand and had evidently been weeping.
"You have heard what he says?" asked Don Roderigo.
"He has told me everything," replied Evaña, "and I am going to see Don Gregorio."
"I will go with you," said Don Roderigo.
"No, no," said Doña Constancia; "let Don Carlos go alone. It is right that my father should know of this, but I do not wish that you should have any dispute with him. Such an idea! If you mention it to him he will never speak to you again."
"Constancia says that it is absolutely impossible to think of such a thing as a marriage between them," said Don Roderigo.
"The idea is folly," said Doña Constancia. "That Gregorio should amuse himself with a gauchita, to that we are accustomed, but Roderigo says that they insist upon him marrying her!"