His failure to retain her favor piqued Antonio. Like many another monk before him, he had often found pleasure in the belief that, if need arose, he could hold his own as a man of the world. Nor did the pleasantness of such a belief spring altogether from sinful pride. He had sought to hallow God's name and to hasten the coming of the Kingdom by sacrificing his share of life's delights and excitements; and he naturally preferred to think that the world he had renounced was a world in which he would have triumphed, and not a world in which he would have blundered and failed. The first eventful days which followed the arrival of all these English people at the abbey had ministered so subtly to his complacency that the awakening was all the ruder. Beneath the surface of his monkish humility the natural man began to stir proudly and imperiously towards the regaining of his dominance. The next day was Sunday. So as to save the faces of poor Magarida and her family, Antonio avoided the ten o'clock crowd and fulfilled his obligation at the seven o'clock low Mass. This was the Mass most favored of the local Saints and Blessed Ones; but although the cura and the worshipers were full of quiet devotion the monk found it hard to keep his thoughts from wandering. Nearly all the way home Isabel tripped daintily hither and thither before his mind's eyes. He soon decided that he must not present himself again either at pool or at guest-house for a day or two; but this resolution only enhanced the dreariness of his mood. Reaching the farm about nine o'clock he was about to prepare his lonely breakfast when José appeared with a letter. It had been brought, he said, by Sir Percy's Portuguese servant, whom José proceeded to denounce as an inquisitive minx and a saucy chatterbox. Antonio broke the seal and read: _Mrs. Baxter presents her compliments to Signor da Rocha and requests the pleasure of his company to-morrow (Sunday) afternoon, for tea. Mrs. B. trusts that Signor R. reached home yesterday before the shower._ _Saturday Evening._ Underneath Mrs. Baxter's expansive script the monk saw a few infinitesimal characters, so minute that in spite of his keen eyes he was forced to hold them up to the light. At first they looked like a wavy and broken line, about half an inch long; but he deciphered them at last. They ran: _Do come. I. K-T._ "For instance," said José indignantly. "She asked me point-blank, plump out, whether your Worship is engaged to be married." Antonio wheeled round so sharply that he almost let the paper fall. It took him some moments to realize that José was not quoting Isabel, but only Isabel's servant. "I up and asked her, straight off, if she was engaged to be married herself," continued José. "And when she said No, I said, 'With a tongue like that I don't wonder at it.' Then she went home."