Isora sighed faintly, and it was not till I had pressed her to speak that she said:-- "I wish I could deceive myself, Morton, but I cannot--I cannot root from my heart an impression that I shall never again quit this dull city with its gloomy walls and its heavy air. A voice within me seems to say, 'Behold from this very window the boundaries of your living wanderings!'" Isora's words froze all my previous exaltation. "It is in vain," said I, after chiding her for her despondency, "it is in vain to tell me that you have for this gloomy notion no other reason than that of a vague presentiment. It is time now that I should press you to a greater confidence upon all points consistent with your oath to our mutual enemy than you have hitherto given me. Speak, dearest, have you not some yet unrevealed causes for alarm?" It was but for a moment that Isora hesitated before she answered with that quick tone which indicates that we force words against the will. "Yes, Morton, I /will/ tell you now, though I would not before the event of this day. On the last day that I saw that fearful man, he said, 'I warn you, Isora d'Alvarez, that my love is far fiercer than hatred; I warn you that your bridals with Morton Devereux shall be stained with blood. Become his wife, and you perish! Yea, though I suffer hell's tortures forever and forever from that hour, my own hand shall strike you to the heart!' Morton, these words have thrilled through me again and again, as if again they were breathed in my very ear; and I have often started at night and thought the very knife glittered at my breast. So long as our wedding was concealed, and concealed so closely, I was enabled to quiet my fears till they scarcely seemed to exist. But when our nuptials were to be made public, when I knew that they were to reach the ears of that fierce and unaccountable being, I thought I heard my doom pronounced. This, mine own love, must excuse your Isora, if she seemed ungrateful for your generous eagerness to announce our union. And perhaps she would not have acceded to it so easily as she has done were it not that, in the first place, she felt it was beneath your wife to suffer any terror so purely selfish to make her shrink from the proud happiness of being yours in the light of day; and if she had not felt [here Isora hid her blushing face in my bosom] that she was fated to give birth to another, and that the announcement of our wedded love had become necessary to your honour as to mine!"