Before her proud and happy gaze Antonio's cheeks grew pale. It was as if a pet lamb were looking up to him for a caress, when all the time he was gripping a butcher's knife behind his back. It was as if some smiling friend were holding out to him an exquisite vase full of lilies and roses which he must straightway dash into pieces. Isabel seemed so frail, so soft, so white, so trustful, so lamb-like; and her love was surely the most fragrant and beautiful thing in all the world. "You are coy," she said laughing gaily. "And you have turned as pale as a swooning heroine in an English novel. I suppose you're going to say, 'Give me time: this is so sudden!'" Although Antonio remained silent, no doubt of his love crossed her mind. Had she not read love in his eyes, time after time? She took it for granted that he was merely tongue-tied because of the strangeness of the situation. "You have read it?" she asked, drawing the folded paper from his unresisting hand. "Every word?" He bowed assent. For a minute or two her slender fingers busied themselves tearing the document first into ribbons, then into small squares, and finally into tiny shreds. After she had mixed the shreds well together she ran to the lower end of the pool and threw them, one small handful at a time, into the swirling rapids. "You are tired," said Antonio when she returned. "The day is sultry. Later on there will be thunder. You have walked a long way. You must sit down." Isabel seated herself on the flat boulder. But although there was room at her side the monk remained standing. She pouted unconsciously and darted two furtive glances at his eyes. The first glance was only a glance of slight disappointment and of shy reproof; but the second was a glance of sudden anguish and sickening fear. The silence lengthened until she could bear it no longer. "Speak to me!" she commanded indignantly. "Why do you stand there saying nothing? I suppose you despise me?" "Isabel," he said, calling her by her name for the first time, "you know I don't despise you." He spoke her name in a voice so strangely sweet that her ears tingled and her heart leaped. And when his brown velvet eyes looked into hers with sorrowful tenderness all her pride broke down. "Then why are you so cruel?" she cried. "Why do you make it so hard for me? Haven't I humiliated myself enough? You are cruel. Why do you not tell me that you love me?" The supernal grace and might which had miraculously fulfilled Antonio's body and soul enabled him to triumph over temptation; but they did not deliver him from anguish. The sword which was about to rend the heart of Isabel scorched him as it circled downward for its dreadful work. Her coming ordeal was already his; and he stood in the midst of it as in a burning fiery furnace.