"Señores," said he, when all were present, "there is no longer necessity for secrecy; I have invited you here to-day to assist me in conducting a newspaper, which his Excellency the Viceroy has commissioned me to publish, in order to teach the people by the writings of men of education and experience, the due appreciation of their rights and privileges. Every article before publication will have to be submitted to his Excellency for approval, the teachings of the newspaper will thus have official sanction and authority. The subject to which he desires me more particularly to direct attention is the necessity for union and public spirit. I think we may on these subjects easily devise such articles as may merit his approval, and at the same time may teach our fellow-citizens that the prosperity of our country depends upon our own union for the assertion of those rights which are most wrongfully withheld from us by Spain."
Before the end of January, in the year 1810, the prospectus of the new Diario del Comercio was published in Buenos Aires, and extensively circulated by viceregal authority throughout the provinces.
Through the summer and autumn the newspaper appeared at regular intervals, and in every number there was at least one article which in covert language was an attack upon the colonial system of Spain.
Long and weary were these months to Marcelino Ponce de Leon, the sweet voice of Magdalen Miranda no longer cheered him in his troubles, in vain he looked for sympathy into her deep grey eyes; he seldom saw her at all, when he did there was a cold constraint in her manner to him, which more effectually kept him at a distance from her than would any outspoken anger. And of one great trouble he dared not speak even to her. Since the day when Evaña had shown him that fatal newspaper paragraph recording the loss of the Petrel he had heard no further tidings of his friend Gordon; he had written to England, but communication was slow and uncertain in those days, he had received no answer to his letter, the fate of his English friend was yet in suspense, and suspense is more wearing than the most dreadful certainty. Sorrowing over the loss of the first love of his life, alternately hoping and fearing as the days wore on, the colour faded from his cheeks, and even faint lines of care began to show themselves upon his smooth forehead. In vain his mother and Dolores strove to cheer him, knowing nothing of the cause of his grief, or if Dolores suspected somewhat of the cause, she kept it to herself and never spoke to him of Magdalen Miranda.
Of his trouble he could not speak even to his friend Evaña, who was to him as a brother, for Evaña had spoken to him scornfully of Don Alfonso Miranda, and slightingly of her who was to him the one pearl among women. And in the face of his friend he had seen hope and love softening the harshness of his features and infusing a gentle tenderness into his dark eyes, he knew that the loss of that other friend was to him great gain, he could not look to him for sympathy.
To Evaña this time had passed as one long holiday. As month after month went by, and there came no news of Gordon, the thought that he had perished in the wreck of the Petrel became to him a certainty, yet of this certainty he spoke to no one, he dreaded what the effect of the intelligence might be upon the girl he loved; he knew the firm constancy of her nature, firm even in faults, steady with a steadiness which he had learned to look upon as a most unusual trait in the character of a woman. Her constancy was itself one source of the admiration he felt for her, even though her love were lavished on another. While Gordon lived he knew that her heart would never swerve from its allegiance, and he disdained the thought of seeking for himself the love of a heart which owned another master. But if his rival no longer lived, then he thought that it might be his to soothe the pain of a fearful wound and to win that heart wholly to himself.
Yet he dreaded the day when this intelligence should reach her, he knew that the pain would be all the more severe from the stern courage with which she would hide it in her own bosom; he loved her, and her suffering, however bravely it might be concealed, would he knew, rend his own heart with fearful agony. He dreaded the arrival of every ship from Europe, yet every letter he opened, every letter he saw opened by his friend Marcelino, awaked within him a wild hope that his suspense was ended.
This time had been to him one long holiday, but a holiday to the full as replete with alternate hope and fear, as it had been to him he called his brother. As the months passed on, hope grew stronger and stronger within him, and as hope grew stronger so his love waxed bolder, till he began to say to himself that he had no longer any living rival whom he need fear, and that he might venture to seek for himself the love of a heart that might yet be his.
He talked much of the uncertainty of a soldier's life, spoke much of the desperate fighting in the Peninsula, of which each ship from Europe brought them fresh details, but as he did so, his heart often smote him with bitter anguish as he looked upon the face of Lola Ponce; in the tightly-compressed lips and watching eyes he saw a question which she never asked him; he saw her ask herself, was there any meaning to her in these words of his beyond such meaning as they had at all.
The long summer days began to draw in, the wheat was garnered, apricots glowed temptingly on the trees like balls of frosted gold, grapes hung from the espaliers in great purple bunches, inviting the despoiler, and the peaches, losing their dull-green hue, began to deck themselves in scarlet and yellow, toned down with an exquisite bloom. The Quinta de Ponce looked more like an oasis than ever, the dark-green leaves of the trees contrasting strongly with the dry yellow grass of the Pampa, and with the arid hardness of the dusty roads, as Marcelino and his friend Evaña rode up to it, one evening in February. Evaña had been unusually silent on the way out; he had resolved that the time had come, for him to break as gently as he could the news to Dolores of the great loss she had suffered, and he had resolved to do it himself, for, as he thought, none but Marcelino and himself had penetrated her secret, and he sought to shield her as he could, even at the risk of bitter sorrow to himself.