The moonbeam softly faded from the chamber. But Antonio did not move. His weary limbs and exhausted brain could resist no longer; and, still kneeling against her pillow with his arms outstretched across her bed, he fell asleep. II When the monk awoke day was dawning. For a while memory failed him. But as soon as he understood that he was in Isabel's room he leaped up and hastened downstairs. He knew that he ought to go straight home. But his feet, despite their soreness, turned towards the stepping-stones. He retraced the path by which she had left him, hardly thirty-six hours before. Past the cypresses, through the mimosas, he went; and before the sun rose he was standing in the icy spray of the thunderous waterfall. He longed to plunge into the crystal pool; but her invisible presence abashed him, and with an ever-sharpening pain he hurried away. As he regained the farm, he found José burning some dead leaves. Why could he not tear down these clinging memories of Isabel from his heart, as José could tear down ivies from the trees, and fling them a-top of the glowing, fuming pyre? The gust of pale, acrid smoke which nipped his nostrils was bitter-sweet. After a dip in the brook he drank some of the sham coffee and forced down a hunk of coarse bread. But when he faced his routine he found that he could neither work nor pray. The black and red letters in his breviary danced impishly before his eyes; and when he took up a pen to write out some accounts he marked the paper with more blots than figures. Both door and window were wide open to the morning breeze; yet the room suffocated him. At last a plan formed in Antonio's brain and he did not delay its execution. Stuffing a piece of bread in his pocket he sought out José and said: "To-morrow my hard work will begin. To-day I am going to Navares. After to-night I will not leave you so much alone." He set out, striding northward with long strides. Every stride was a symbol of his renunciation; for he knew that by this time Isabel would have left her inn and that every moment was taking her farther southward to Lisbon. On he pressed. As landmark after landmark came in sight a flood of old memories diluted his bitter potion of new-brewed sorrow. He lived over again the afternoon of his dusty march from the monastery amid a throng of monks and soldiers and the evening of his solitary return. But not for long. An hour before the white houses of Navares shone in the morning sun Isabel had once more become the sole tenant of his mind.