During the rapid give and take of this trying scene Kendal saw with a kind of incredulous admiration that Isabel Bretherton never once lost herself, that every gesture was true, every word struck home. Her extraordinary grace, her marvellous beauty were all subordinated to, forgotten almost in the supreme human passion speaking through her. Macias, in the height of his despair while he was still alone with her, had flung her his sword, declaring that he would go forth and seek his death an unarmed and defenceless man. Then, when he becomes conscious of the approach of his rival, the soldier's instinct revives in him; he calls for his sword; she refuses it, and he makes a threatening step towards her. '_Mac_. My sword, Elvira. _Elvira_. Never! _Beatriz_. Ah! they are here. It is too late! _Elvira_. Go! No blood shall flow for me. Come no nearer--or I sheathe it in this breast.' All the desperate energy of a loving woman driven to bay was in her attitude as she repelled Macias, whereas in the agony of her last clinging appeal to him, as his guards lead him off, every trace of her momentary heroism had died away. Faint and trembling, recoiling from every harsh word of his as from a blow, she had followed him towards the door, and in her straining eyes and seeking, outstretched hands as she watched him disappear, there was a pathos so true, so poignant, that it laid a spell upon the audience, and the curtain fell amid a breathless silence, which made the roar that almost instantly followed doubly noticeable. But it was in the third act that she won her highest triumph. The act opened with a scene between Elvira and her husband, in which she implored him, with the humility and hopelessness of grief, to allow her to retire from the world and to hide the beauty which had wrought such ruin from the light of day. He, in whom jealousy has taken fierce root, refuses with reproach and insult, and in the full tide of her passionate reaction against his tyranny, the news is brought her by Beatriz that Fernan, in his determination to avoid the duel with Macias on the morrow, which the Duke, in accordance with knightly usage, has been forced to grant, has devised means for assassinating his rival in prison. Naturally, her whole soul is thrown into an effort to save her lover. She bribes his guards. She sends Beatriz to denounce the treachery of her husband to the Duke, and, finally, she herself penetrates into the cell of Macias, to warn him of the fate that threatens him and to persuade him to fly.