She is suffering agony, and the livelong day I have sat bathing her with water from the cool well. I have had none to help me till a few minutes ago, for the peasant girls, it seems, have been afraid to come up as long as these terrible men were in sight. At length, however, the girl you saw just now arrived, and then the prior told me you were here, but must depart tonight. Oh, Lorenzo, is it so? and will you leave me again so soon?" Lorenzo's tale had now to be related, and he told her all--the bond of honour which he felt himself under to accompany the King of France, and the hopes--the wild, delusive hopes--with which he had come thither. Leonora listened sadly, and for a few moments after he had done speaking she sat silent, with the tears glittering in her eyes, but not overrunning the long black lashes. "You must go, Lorenzo," she said at length--"you must go. God forbid that I should keep you when honour and duty call you hence, though my selfish heart would say, 'Stay.' Oh that you had been a day earlier! Then all this day's terrible agonies might have been spared us, and even the pain of parting which is before us. Willingly--willingly, my Lorenzo, would I have been your bride at an hour's notice, and I do believe that poor Francesca would have gone with us. But now, oh Lorenzo! you cannot ask me to leave her. I know you will not. If you could see the agony she is suffering, you would not have the heart to do it." Lorenzo was silent, for the struggle in his bosom was terrible. She spoke in such a tone that he thought he might still prevail if he had but the hardness to press her urgently, and yet he felt that he should esteem, if not love, her less if she yielded. He remained silent, for he could not speak; but at length her sweet voice decided him. "Lorenzo, strengthen me," she said; "I am very weak. Tell me--tell me that it is my duty to remain--that not even love can justify such a cruel, such an ungrateful act; and, as I tell you to go because honour calls you away, oh bid me to stay because it is right to do so." He pressed her to his heart more fondly than ever; he covered her brow, her cheeks, her lips, with kisses; he held her hand in his as if he never could part with it, and but few more words were spoken till the prior came to tell him his horses were prepared and his men mounted. Then came the terrible parting. "Father," he said, "I leave her to your care. Oh! you can not tell what a precious charge it is! In a few weeks I will return to claim her as my own. Oh! watch over her till then. My brain seems disordered with the very thought of the dangers that surround her in these days of violence and wrong."