Miriam stood rather sadly beside the bulwarks, gazing at the land in which she had been born, and which she was now leaving forever. A low sigh broke from her lips. "Why do you sigh? Are you sorry to quit your native land?" a voice whispered in her ear. "Yes; though for my grandfather's sake I cannot deeply regret it," Miriam answered, gazing at Diniz with tear-dimmed eyes. "I have not thanked you yet for having released me from that dreadful place, or even a worse doom. I am still scarcely able to realize my good fortune. What made you, a stranger, think of one whom all others had forgotten?" "Not all. It was Donna Lianor who told me where you were, and asked me to help you," Miriam said, blushing beneath his tender, grateful gaze. "Besides, I looked upon you as a friend," almost inaudibly. "That is what I want to be--your friend. And Lianor--how is she?-- well?" "As well as it is possible to be under the heavy trial she went through this morning. She was married to Manuel Tonza," sadly. "Poor girl! Poor Lianor! Hers is indeed an unhappy lot!" Diniz murmured pityingly. CHAPTER V. In a large, handsome room, overlooking a shining river, now ablaze with sunshine, sat a beautiful woman, wearing on her face unmistakable signs of sadness. She scarcely heeded the opening door, until two pretty children came bounding to her side, clambering onto her chair and lap. Then her face changed, and a sweet, tender smile chased away all gloom; the idle hands were busy now stroking the curly heads pressed so close against her. "I would have brought them to you before, but their father wished to keep them; he is always so happy when they are near," a little, dark-eyed woman, clad in picturesque robes of brilliant crimson and gold, said rapidly, as she threw herself down on a pile of soft cushions opposite the sweet, pale mother. Lianor sighed, but she could not look sad long with those loved children clasped in her arms. "I cannot understand Manuel," she said, with a puzzled expression in her eyes; "he is so strange, sometimes gay--almost too gay; then he relapses into a gloomy, brooding apathy, from which even the children have no power to rouse him." "But you have. He is never too morose to have a smile for you. I think, sometimes, he feels lonely. You are bound to him, yet your heart is as unresponsive to his passionate love as if you were strangers," Savitre said, thoughtfully. "Do you think so, Savitre? I am indeed sorry; but you know how impossible it is to forget my first love. I like Manuel, but beyond that, affection--except for my darlings--is dead; buried in Luiz's grave." "Hush! here comes Manuel," Savitre whispered, warningly. It was indeed Manuel, older and graver-looking than of yore, with a deep melancholy in his eyes, brought there only by intense suffering. Savitre, on his entrance, softly glided from the room, leaving husband and wife alone.