A time went by, a long, long time—in fact it was nearly a month—before Peter really opened his eyes to the world again. Not that he had been insensible for all this while—that is, quite—for at intervals he had become aware of that large, cool room, and of people talking about him—especially of a dark-eyed, light-footed, and pretty woman with a white wimple round her face, who appeared to be in charge of him. Occasionally he thought that this must be Margaret, and yet knew that it could not, for she was different. Also, he remembered that once or twice he had seemed to see the haughty, handsome face of Morella bending over him, as though he watched curiously to learn whether he would live or not, and then had striven to rise to fight him, and been pressed back by the soft, white hands of the woman that yet were so terribly strong. Now, when he awoke at last, it was to see her sitting there with a ray of sunlight from some upper window falling on her face, sitting with her chin resting on her hand and her elbow on her knee, and contemplating him with a pretty, puzzled look. She made a sweet picture thus, he thought. Then he spoke to her in his slow Spanish, for somehow he knew that she would not understand his own tongue. “You are not Margaret,” he said. At once the dream went out of the woman’s soft eyes; she became intensely interested, and, rising, advanced towards him, a very gracious figure, who seemed to sway as she walked. “No, no,” she said, bending over him and touching his forehead with her taper fingers; “my name is Inez. You wander still, Señor.” [Illustration: ] “My name is Inez. You wander still, Señor” “Inez what?” he asked. “Inez only,” she answered, “Inez, a woman of Granada, the rest is lost. Inez, the nurse of sick men, Señor.” “Where then is Margaret—the English Margaret?” A veil of secrecy seemed to fall over the woman’s face, and her voice changed as she answered, no longer ringing true, or so it struck his senses made quick and subtle by the fires of fever: “I know no English Margaret. Do you then love her—this English Margaret?” “Aye,” he answered, “she was stolen from me; I have followed her from far, and suffered much. Is she dead or living?” “I have told you, Señor, I know nothing, although”—and again the voice became natural—“it is true that I thought you loved somebody from your talk in your illness.” Peter pondered a while, then he began to remember, and asked again: “Where is Castell?” “Castell? Was he your companion, the man with a hurt arm who looked like a Jew? I do not know where he is. In another part of the city, perhaps. I think that he was sent to his friends. Question me not of such matters, who am but your sick-nurse. You have been very ill, Señor. Look!” And she handed him a little mirror made of polished silver, then, seeing that he was too weak to take it, held it before him.