"But you say they have failed; he may be in danger. When did you leave the city? What have you heard?"
"I left the city last night, and I have heard nothing more than I have told you."
"And all the day where have you been?" said Magdalen, looking at him in surprise.
"I have been all day at the quinta, I have just come from there. I could not pass the first day of my freedom without seeing you."
"And your father in danger! Oh, that is wrong, it is so unlike you.
"In danger of what? a prison? I have just escaped from the prison where he put me."
"He put you! It was the Viceroy put you in prison, and Don Roderigo was very angry about it; Don Fausto said so."
"The Viceroy does nothing of himself, he always consults some one, none more than my father. My father warned me of this conspiracy, and I told him that if the Spaniards here pronounced against Liniers, as Elio did in Monte Video, all Argentines would support the Viceroy against them. He wanted me to promise him that I would take no part either one way or other. I refused, and a few days after I was in prison. Do not you think that one word from my father would have set me free? That word he never spoke. None knew better than he that in the affair of the Princess Carlota nothing could be proved against me, and I fear that he himself suggested my imprisonment."
"Even if it be so it was for your sake he did it. If you had been with the Viceroy, and the Spaniards had been successful, no one knows what perils you would have run, in prison you were safe from all risk."
"Am I boy, that my father must lock me up to keep me out of mischief? I gave up my scheme to please him, and see now how he trusts me."