"The world perhaps not, dear sweet," he said more gaily, "but there is a heart beating close to yours now which holds I swear an infinity of love for you." And once more as he spoke, the same magic spell of a while ago descended upon Lenora. It seemed as if for the moment life--the dreary, wretched life of the past few days--had ceased, and a kind of dream-existence had begun. And in this dream-existence she--Lenora--was all alone with this stranger--this man whom but a few days ago she had not even seen--who had had no part in her life in the peaceful past when she knew nothing of the world beyond the old convent walls at Segovia; yet now--in the dream-existence--she was alone with him and she was content. Ramon was not there--he had become the past--all the future for her seemed suddenly to be bound up with Mark, and she was content. He had spoken of beauty, of skies, of birds and of the gifts of God, and he still held her hand, and his arm now was right round her, so that she could feel him drawing her closer and closer to him, the while the magic spell worked upon her senses and she felt a delicious languor pervading her entire being. "Give me your lips, sweetheart," he whispered in her ear, "and I’ll give you your first lesson even now." And verily I do believe that Lenora would have yielded here and now--content to leave the great solution of her life’s riddle in the omnipotent hands of love--forgetting her oath to her father, the death of Ramon, the danger which threatened the Duke of Alva, conspiracies, treacheries, rebellion ... everything! What did it all matter? what did the world and its intrigues and its politics count beside the insistent, the wonderful call of Love?--the call of man to woman, of bird to bird, to mate and to nest and to be happy, to forget the universe in one embrace, to renounce the kingdoms of the world in the first blissful kiss. For a few seconds Lenora remained quite still, while Happiness--the strange and mysterious elf--fluttered softly about the room. It hovered for awhile above that ingle-nook where two young hearts were mutely calling one to another, and it looked down on the beautiful girl with the glowing eyes and parted lips who with every fibre of her ardent being and the insistence of her youth was ready to capture it.... And Chance, Fate or its own elusive nature drove it relentlessly away. III How peaceful was the sleepy little town at this moment when dusk finally faded into night! The tower bells of the Cloth Hall chimed the sixth hour: outside on the Grand’ Place all had been still save for the occasional footstep of a passer-by or the measured tramp of a company of halberdiers on duty. And now suddenly that peace was broken, the quietude of the town disturbed by piercing woman’s shrieks, followed by shouts and curses uttered loudly by a rough, masculine voice.