"Three or four hundred dollars you said there were in it, but you returned them to him?"
"I thought you understood me," said Asneiros, turning aside his face to conceal his vexation. "Of course I gave him the money back, and his ingots too, but I gave him leaden ingots for his gold ones, they are quite as much use to him as the gold ones would ever have been, and now the gold will buy muskets and men to reconquer Buenos Aires for Spain."
"It was true then, you stole the old man's gold?"
"It was no use to him, but it is rather a pity that it should turn out to be the dowry of your son's wife."
"The dowry of my son's wife! Marcelino's wife! What do you mean?"
"That Don Marcelino is going to marry Magdalen Miranda, the daughter of that old traitor, and that the ingots should have been hers. We will give them back to her if you like, when we retake Buenos Aires."
"Marcelino marry! I thought——leave me, I can talk no more."
"Come with me to Cordova. When you are president of a Spanish Junta you will have the remedy in your own hands."
To this Don Roderigo made no answer, and Asneiros, giving a fierce twirl to his moustachios, left the room.