Without waiting for the lightning to reveal his face, Isabel knew that she was in the arms of Antonio. Never in her life before had she yielded to any man's caress, save the rare and shamefaced kisses of her father. Yet Antonio's arms seemed to be her natural place, like its nest to a bird. For a few seconds she did not think of identifying the black monk. She believed that the black monk had been on the point of striking her dead, and that some grand magic of love had conjured up Antonio to stand between them in the nick of time. Trembling like a leaf and panting like a runner after a race, she pressed and clung to him, as a terrified child clings to its mother in the dark. "You are Isabel?" said Antonio. He had known from her first scream that it was she; but he thought it might comfort her to hear his voice speaking her name. "Yes. I am Isabel," she murmured. And although a sharp memory of the plighted Bride bade her banish herself at once from his clasp she abandoned herself more than before to the warmth and softness of his gentle strength. "You are safe, quite safe," he said; for she was still trembling all over. "There is no ghost. It was only I." No ghost? Only he? What did it mean? Isabel roused her deliciously drowsing wits. No ghost. Only he. She opened her eyes. But the chapel was filled full with darkness, and she could not see his face. A moment afterwards a prolonged blazing of huge lightnings made the place brighter than day. The azulejos, the high windows, and the gilded carvings shone out like blue and white and yellow fires. Isabel could see Antonio's anxious eyes gazing down into her own. And she had time to see much more. She saw his Benedictine habit; she saw that he and the black monk were one and the same man. She leaped away from him in terror. But terror did not endure. At the touch of his reassuring hand seeking her arm in the gloom, a light as bright as the lightning's blazed within her and a thunderbolt of overwhelming joy swept her off her feet. With a great cry of gladness she flung herself once more against his breast. "It's true, it's really true?" she clamored. "Speak. Answer me at once. You're not deceiving me? Your Bride is not a real woman after all?" "You have surprised my secret, and I trust you to keep it," he answered. "When the monks were here they knew me as Father Antonio." "Antonio, Antonio, Antonio--what a beautiful name!" she cried. "Come, Father Antonio, tell me. Your Bride is only Religion, or the Church, or the Virgin, or something like that?" Her tone dismayed the monk even more than her words shocked him; and he remained silent.