He must have surprised glances, movements, and designs of this Don Ruy, who had not been sufficiently on the alert, because he was very much in love. But how? when? Dimly she remembered a youth who had crossed her one Sunday in the square and awaited her at the church porch with a bundle of carnations in his hands.... Was it he? He had a noble bearing, and was very pale, with big, black, passionate eyes. She had passed by, indifferent.... The carnations he carried were red and yellow.... To whom was he taking them? Ah! if she could warn him very soon, at daybreak. But how, if there was no retainer or man-*servant in Cabril in whom she could confide? But to allow a brutal sword traitorously to pierce that heart which was full of her, beating for her, all in hopes of her ...! Oh, the mad and ardent rush of Don Ruy from Segovia to Cabril, with the promise of the enchanting garden open to him, the ladder placed against the window, under the silence and protection of the night! Would the Lord of Lara really order a ladder to be set against the window? Yes, for a certainty, in order the more easily to kill him, the poor, sweet, innocent youth, as he was mounting, ill secure on an uncertain step, his hands employed and his sword sleeping in the scabbard.... And so, in the coming night, facing her bed, her window would be open and a ladder would be raised against her window waiting for a man. Ambushed in the shade of the room, her husband would certainly kill that man.... But supposing the Lord of Lara were to wait for this Don Ruy de Cardenas outside the walls of the _quinta_, and assail him brutally in some bypath, and, either because he was less dexterous or strong in a clash of arms, were himself to be pierced through and fall without the other knowing whom he had killed? And she there, in her room, unknowing, and all the gates open and the ladder raised, and that man appearing at the window in the soft shade of the warm night while the husband who ought to defend her lay dead in an obscure path.... What would she do, Virgin Mother? Surely she would haughtily repel the bold youth. But his surprise and anger at his baffled desire! 'I have come at your call, lady.’ And he would carry there on his heart her letter, with her name, which her hand had traced. How could she tell him of the ambush and the deceit? It was such a long tale to tell in the silence and solitude of the night whilst his moist black eyes were beseeching and piercing her.... Miserable she, if the Lord of Lara were to die and leave her, solitary and defenceless, in that great open house. But how miserable also, if that youth, who was summoned by her and who loved her and who was hurrying to her, dazzled by his love, were to meet with death in the place of his hope which was the place of his sin, and dying in the midst of sin, were to roll down whither all hope is at an end.... Only twenty-five years old too--if he was the man she remembered, pallid and