Antonio paused in his reading. For a moment he felt an immense relief at learning that he was not to blame. But he reminded himself that his blamelessness did not help Isabel one whit. Here was a mystical passion, an inscrutable supernatural love. No one could explain its beginning, no one could foretell its end. Only by a great effort did he resume the reading of the paper. It continued: _So much for the past. Now for the present and the future. What are we to do? Don't be hurt, dearest friend, if I write bluntly about practical matters._ _There is a difference in our stations. I suspect that your blood is really nobler than mine and that your escutcheon is less tarnished; but, from the point of view of my friends, this will be a misalliance. Don't be angry. I mention it only to bid you disregard it. I have pondered it well and it weighs less than a sparrow's feather. I am nothing to the people in England; and they shall be nothing to me. Tell me, though; was it this that held you back from wooing me? I believe it was; and that is why the advances came from my side. But, after this, remember! You must court me, woo me. If I command it, you must crick your neck for me, as if I were a Senhorita._ _And now about my father. You may fear that it will be a blow to him. Certainly it will amaze him and disconcert him. But if you were not in the case, my friend, I should have to amaze him and disconcert him some other way. So long as I and Mrs. Baxter and Jackson are with him, he doesn't realise the flight of time. He thinks of me as a little girl, and of himself as a man of forty who must needs be up and doing. He has fought his hard fight and he deserves his rest. More. He needs it. The Navares doctor says he will go out like a candle in a gale if he does not surrender. Whatever you may think, I love my father; and, even for your sake, I would not leave his side if it were not wholly for his good. God knows I am honest in this and in every word I have written._ ISABEL. Mechanically refolding the sheet, Antonio rose to his feet and drew a deep breath. In a few minutes Isabel would return. She would steal as shyly as a young deer through the branches. She would expect him to spring towards her, to clasp her in his arms, to murmur proud words of possession, to lavish in her ears his long-hoarded treasure of love-words, to press kisses on her hands, her cheeks, her eyes, her hair. Like a terrifying tocsin her words clanged in his brain: "My friend, my only friend in the world, you love me!"