"Silence, you old jade!" cried the fierce soldier in a suppressed tone, "you will alarm the whole convent. You have the keys in your hand--I heard them clank. Open the gate instantly, or by all the saints in heaven, I throttle you where you stand." The increased pressure of his fingers warned the old woman that he would keep his word; and, yielding to so novel and convincing a mode of argument, she made use of the keys whose jingle she had imprudently allowed to be heard. Two heavy locks shot back, and a massive bar was withdrawn; and when, by pushing against it, Don Baltasar had convinced himself that the gate was open, he released the gullet of the trembling sister, and entered the paved court. In grievous trepidation the portress was retreating to her lodge, which stood just within the gate, when an upper window of the convent opened, and a female voice enquired, in commanding tones, the cause of the uproar. Don Baltasar seemed to recognise the voice, and he rode up beneath the window whence it proceeded. "Carmen," said he, "is it you?" "Who is that?" was the rejoinder, in accents which surprise or alarm rendered slightly tremulous. "Baltasar," replied the officer. "I must see you instantly, on a matter of life or death." There was a moment's pause. "Remain where you are," said the person at the window; "I will come down to you." The portress, finding that the intruder was known to the lady abbess, for she it was whom Baltasar had addressed as Carmen, now refastened the gate, and crept grumbling to her cell. Don Baltasar waited. Presently a door in the right wing of the convent was opened, a tall female form, clothed in flowing drapery, and carrying a taper in her hand, appeared at it and beckoned him to enter. Tying his horse to a ring in the wall, he obeyed the signal.