Sebastian could not revert to his last interview with Donna Gonsalva, and not find his thoughts hurried away by a multitude of softening recollections; past looks of tenderness, impassioned replies, tears, caresses, the touch of her hand, the tone of her voice, thrilled through his veins with the force of present existence; then returned the conviction of her baseness, and he cast himself on the ground, bathing it with tears, and uttering a thousand distracted exclamations. His devious course was too frequently interrupted by these bursts of despair; but he quickly recovered himself, for friendship yet claimed a share in his soul, and whether Gaspar lived or died, his family had claims on the protection of Sebastian. Travelling through the wildest, because least frequented roads, the King procured food at goat-herds’ huts, or from passing muleteers; his remaining sequins gave him the means of paying these people well, and the watchfulness of Barémel rendered any precaution for his personal safety wholly needless: at night they slept together amongst woods, and in the day journied along, rarely noticed by those who met them. During his route, Sebastian had more than once taken out the letter given him by Kara Aziek, but his bleeding heart shrunk from the pain of reading sentiments so tender and so noble; sentiments which would revive too forcibly the vanished virtue of Donna Gonsalva. “Another time,” he exclaimed, as he returned the sealed vellum to his breast, “another time, matchless angel! for _woman_ I will not call thee. I was to have read this after my re-union with----,” that perfidious name died upon his tongue; he started up, called to Barémel, and hastened to lose thought, in the rapidity of violent motion. Remembering the directions originally given by Gaspar, Sebastian left the Zadaon on his right, and entered some beautiful meadows, among which stood the cottage of his friend’s mother. The mists of morning were but just beginning to clear away from its low roof, and no sound of man or cattle came from the fields around. He approached the cottage; its windows were closed, its garden in ruins: the silence that reigned there caused his heart to stop; could it be possible, he thought, for the family of Gaspar to have shared his cruel fate? grief and horror seized him at this suggestion. With an unsteady hand he shook the fastened door, calling loudly for admittance: after several attempts to rouse the inhabitants, if inhabitants there were, he was preparing to relinquish them in despair, when a casement was cautiously opened, and a female voice was heard to ask, in a tone of extreme alarm, who was there; this question was only answered by a hasty inquiry of whether she belonged to the family of Gaspar Ribeiro. At this demand the young woman uttered a faint cry, exclaiming “O, don’t harm us!--indeed, indeed, he is not here.”