"I have been looking for you, I could not see you anywhere. Come with me, I have news for you, which I am afraid will pain you greatly, but I could not keep it from you." So saying Evaña led the way into a small ante-room where they could talk undisturbed.
"What was the name of the vessel in which our friend Gordon was about to sail for Lisbon, when he last wrote you?" asked Evaña.
"The sloop-of-war Petrel," replied Marcelino.
"I thought I was correct," said Evaña; then drawing an English newspaper from his pocket he added:
"I have just received this, read."
Marcelino took the paper and read the paragraph to which Evaña had pointed; as he read his eyes glazed over. He read an account of how H.B.M. sloop-of-war Petrel, with a detachment of troops on board for the army then assembling at Lisbon, and with several officers, who were on their way to rejoin their regiments, had been totally lost on the coast of Galicia, two boats' crews only escaping. To this was appended a list of the names of the survivors. Eagerly Marcelino scanned that list, but the name of his friend Gordon was not among them. A strange calmness came over him; half an hour before he had felt wild and reckless under the pressure of a sorrow of his own, now he thought only of the sorrow this news would give to another, and that other, his own dearly-loved sister.
"Do not let any one see this paper, do not mention it to any one, it may not be true after all, he may have escaped."
Evaña tore the paragraph, from the paper, and twisting it up, burned it in the flame of a taper.
In the ante-room Marcelino remained alone, moodily thinking of what he had heard and seen that evening; but Evaña returned to the sala, and seeking out Dolores was especially attentive to her, even once to her great surprise dancing with her. When he spoke to her his voice had a soft tenderness in it which she had never heard before. Don Gregorio Lopez and several others came and spoke with him, whispering to him that they had matter of much moment to impart to him, but he resisted all their attempts to draw him from her side. His thoughts were far from politics, far from all that had been hitherto the business of his life, he had given himself up to an intoxicating dream of love, he was a prey to the glamour of hope.