"Madonna," he exclaimed hotly--and suddenly he was quite close to her once again, both her little hands held tightly in his own: his eyes had lost all their merriment: they were full of a glowing ardour which seemed to penetrate into her very soul. "Madonna," he continued, "may God forgive you, for indeed you know not what you say. Child! child! will you think a moment--are we not human creatures like yourself? do we not live and breathe, and eat and love just like you do in Spain? Have we no hearts to feel, no eyes to see the misery which our people suffer through the presence of a stranger in our land? Would you see a Teuton place his iron heel on Spain and on her people? Would you see the Emperor enforce his laws, his faith, his ideals upon your kith and kin? Would you stand by whilst foreign soldiery swaggered about your cities, outraged your women and plundered your homes? Would you rest content if the faith which God hath given you was made akin to treachery and to rebellion? The hand that feeds the Netherlands, Madonna!" he added whilst a bitter, mirthless laugh escaped his lips, "nay! the hand against which the valiant Prince of Orange hath raised his in vengeance, is the hand that hath devastated our land, pillaged our cities and sent our people naked and starving out into the world!" Gradually while he spoke she had drawn herself away from him, and she would have disengaged her hands too, only that he held them so tightly imprisoned. "But Ramon was murdered, Messire," she said slowly, "can you expect me to forget that?--and even now--I would dare swear--there are men who would murder the Duke of Alva if they could ... or my father." He made no answer to that--perhaps had she not mentioned her father he might have tried to tell her that killing was not always murder, but, at times, the work of a justiciary. Ramon--like the noisome brute that he was--deserved death as no mere ordinary criminal ever had deserved it. But how could he tell her that, when in her heart she had evidently kept a picture of the man so totally unlike the vile and execrable reality? So now he only sighed and remained silent. The time had not yet come when this exquisite, tender-hearted girl must see the riddles of life solved before her one by one--when she would realise that there is a wider horizon in this world than that which she perceived above a convent wall. She had been brought up with ideals, thoughts and aspirations that had nothing to do with the great and bitter truths which were proclaimed in every corner of this downtrodden land. Her ideas of King and country, of duty, of loyalty, must all be shattered by the crude realities of life ere upon their ruins she built for herself a purer, holier edifice of faith and hope and infinite charity.