teeth--‘address it to Don Ruy de Cardenas!’ She dared to raise her eyes, surprised at that unknown name. 'Go on! “To Don Ruy de Cardenas,”’ shouted the churlish man, and she directed her immodest letter to Don Ruy de Cardenas. Don Alonso put the parchment in his girdle next to the dagger which he had sheathed, and went out in silence, his beard pointing forward, hushing the noise of his steps on the flags of the corridor. She remained on the footstool in a state of immeasurable fright, her wearied hands fallen in her lap and her gaze lost in the darkness of the still night. Death appeared to her less dark than this dark adventure in which she felt herself involved and borne along. Who was this Don Ruy de Cardenas of whom she had never heard, who had never passed across her quiet life, peopled by so few memories and men? And he certainly knew her, had met her and had followed her, at least with his eyes, since it was a natural and consequent thing that he should receive from her a letter of such passion and promises.... Thus did a man, a young man, evidently well-born, perhaps handsome, penetrate rudely into her destiny, brought there by the hand of her husband. So intimately, even, had this man become a part of her life without preparation on her side, that her garden gate was already open for him at night, and a ladder propped against her window at night for him to mount. And it was her husband who, with the greatest secrecy, set wide the door and raised the ladder.... Why? Then, in a flash, Donna Leonor understood the truth, the shameful truth, and it drew from her an anguished and half-stifled cry. It was an ambush! The Lord of Lara was attracting this Don Ruy to Cabril with a splendid promise, to get him in his power, and certainly to kill him, defenceless and alone! And herself, her love, her body were the shining promises set before the beguiled eyes of the luckless youth. So her husband was using her beauty and her bed as a golden net into which that rash prize was to fall. What greater wrong could there be? And what imprudence too? Don Ruy de Cardenas might very well distrust and not accept such an openly amorous invitation, and afterwards, in laughing triumph, show all over Segovia that letter in which the wife of Alonso de Lara offered him her bed and body. But no! the poor fellow would hasten to Cabril and die, die miserably in the black silence of the night, without either priest or sacraments, his soul sunk in the sin of love! Die without doubt, for the Lord of Lara would never permit the man who had received such a letter to live. So that youth would die for love of her, for a love that, while it had never brought him a single pleasure, now brought him death. Clearly for love of her, since such hatred as that of the Lord of Lara, a hatred that sated itself with such disloyalty and villainy, could only spring from jealousy which obscured in his mind all the duties of a knight and a Christian.