He turned his gaze towards the Atlantic. But the day was growing sultry. Thunder was in the air and mists hid the great waters. He dared not look into the woods lest he should espy the slender figure tripping towards him. And somehow he could not lift up his eyes and his heart to heaven. In this cruel issue his inborn instincts of a courtly gentleman wore down his acquired habits of piety, until it savored of a coarseness or of a lapse from honor to breathe a word of this rare ladye's secret, even into the pitiful ears of God's saints and angels. Thus earth and sea and sky alike failed him. He closed his eyes. Suddenly a rosy light and a delicious perfumed warmth seemed to suffuse his body and soul. Of course. His way was plain. God had frozen his cry for help upon his lips because it was no longer God's will that he should mortify his manhood in dogged fidelity to obsolete vows. He had vowed his vows in the belief that the Order would continue, and that he would live and die in its midst, upheld by its hourly discipline and devotion. He had not left the Order: the Order had left him. For seven years he had labored to restore it, and he had failed. He was free. Free. Free to be as other men, free to hail the most wonderful and beautiful of maidens, free to exult over her, free to receive her marvelous love and to give it back a thousand-fold. He opened his eyes, and involuntarily held out his arms. With bent head Isabel was picking her way up the slope. Her exquisite hands held her pretty dress of sprigged muslin clear of the thorny undergrowth. Sunbeams played with her golden ringlets. Antonio watched her with a sense of intoxication. This lovely girl was his, body and spirit, all his. She drew nearer until he could see the blue of her large eyes, the peach-bloom of her soft cheeks. Then, with the suddenness of an earthquake, the greatest miracle of his life befell. Hundreds of times in the past, especially at seasons of abounding faith and high ecstasy, he had prayed that the Blessed Virgin would fly to his relief if ever he should weaken in this most perilous of his vows. "Pray for me, O Mother of mothers, O Virgin of virgins!" he had cried again and again. "Pray for me whenever I cannot, or will not, pray for myself." And, as Isabel parted the branches behind the mimosa, those hundreds of old prayers were answered. Celestial fire and supernal power filled his whole being so suddenly and mightily that he was conscious of a physical pang, of a roaring in his ears like rushing winds and resounding waters, of a great brightness before his eyes. He stepped forward and held back the last bough. V The heat of conflict and the flush of victory had wrought so great a change in Antonio's expression that Isabel started when they came face to face. But she interpreted his transfiguration as an ecstasy of love and joy; and her blue eyes suddenly shone with a radiance as wonderful as his own.