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“I feel as though in a dream. Is it possible I am here, and she is gone, gone forever? How often I have seen her by the side of the fountain, raising herself upon the jutting stone-work to pluck the red geraniums and place them in her hair! Even when I was a boy her pretty unstudied ways delighted me,—and Herlinda as naturally as she breathed acted her dainty coquetries. And to fancy now that all that grace and beauty is lost to me, to the world, forever! that she is sacrificed—buried!”

He spoke bitterly and sighed, yet with that tone of renunciation which more completely than to death itself, marks the voices of the children of the Church of Rome as they yield their loved ones to her cloisters. It was in the voice of Doña Feliz, as she presently replied,—

“It seems indeed a strange destiny for so bright a life; but against the call of religion we cannot murmur, Vicente. Many and great have been the sins of the Garcias. May Herlinda’s prayers, her vigils, her tears condone them!” She crossed herself and sighed heavily.