"Weak? Oh yes, I am weak to-night, or I should not be here--the weakness of a sick man who cannot help himself. It is the last time, Espiritu mia, so long as we live--so long as we live!" She slipped the Aztec ring from her finger and gave it to him. "I thought perhaps it was the ring that gave you power over my thoughts," she said, simply; "but it was not. Your heart beats here in my breast, and will till I die, or till you do. Take it back, keep it. After all, it was not the ring!" Her voice was so low, so even, that he, hearing his own heart-beats at the mere sight of her, felt the sudden resentment of a sick man at what appeared to be her cold control of herself. "Is it so easy for you, then?" he asked. "Like slipping a ring from your finger or a bracelet from your wrist, and putting it aside to wear no more? Oh, God! If but for one minute you could know aught but the sweet cool love of the girl, or the nun, or the devotee!" She caught her breath in a little shudder at the heart-call in his words, then put out her hand and looked at him as he had never seen her look. "Don't touch me," she said, her tones tense with a final decision. "You think that I do not know--that I do not understand; yet you see me kneel _there_!" and she flung one eloquent hand to the Madalena of the roses. "It is the thought--the thought! That we live on different sides of the world will not change the fact that you live in me, and I in you. And it will be always--always! I do not understand? Yet I have locked my door at night and flung the key through the bars of the window, that I could not follow my heart and go to you wherever you were! I do not understand? Yet there have been days when I feared to mount my horse to ride alone, for fear the wild wish for you would grow stronger than I could bear, and I should ride to you, to you only, and--oh, Mother of God!--ask you to keep me there!" Her voice broke in shuddering sobs, and she covered her face with her hands, sinking on her knees before the Madalena of the altar, the last crowned saint left in the ruin. Her one hand was still extended to ward him off, but he caught it, held it, and drew her to him. "You are mine by all that!" he muttered, scarce knowing what he said. "Do you think I shall leave you here after knowing the truth? Espiritu! The Indians named you rightly. Spirit of mine, there are no bonds of earth strong enough to keep me from you now. Come! Our world is together; the nights of the evil dreams have been lived through. Somewhere we shall find the sunshine." The hand clasping hers she caught to her lips, but when he would have clasped her, she broke from him with a low moan of protest.