so good-looking, with a jerkin of purple velvet and a bunch of carnations in his hand at the church door in Segovia.... Two tears fell from the tired eyes of Donna Leonor, and bending her knees and lifting her whole soul to the heavens where the moon was beginning to rise, she murmured, in her boundless grief and faith, 'O Holy Virgin of the Pillar, Lady mine, watch over us both, watch over us all....’ Don Ruy was entering the fresh _patio_ of his house in the hot hour, when a young peasant got up from a stone seat in the shade and taking from his scrip a letter, handed it to him murmuring, 'Haste and read it, sir, for I have to return to Cabril to the person who sent me.’... Don Ruy opened the parchment and, dazzled by what he saw, beat it against his breast as though to bury it in his heart.... The young peasant anxiously insisted: 'Make haste, sir, make haste! You need not reply. Only give me a sign that you have received the message.’ Don Ruy, very pallid, pulled off one of his gloves embroidered with twisted silk, and the youth rolled it up and hid it in his scrip, and was already making off on the points of his sandals when Don Ruy detained him with a sign: 'Listen, what road are you taking to Cabril.’ 'The shortest and loneliest for bold men, which leads past Gallows Hill.’ 'Good.’ Don Ruy climbed the stone stairs and, once in his apartment, without even removing his hat, again read by the lattice window that blessed parchment in which Donna Leonor summoned him at night to her room and the entire possession of her being. And he was not astonished by this offer after so constant and steady an indifference on her part. Rather he at once saw in it a love which was very astute, because very strong; a love that, with great patience, hides itself in the face of obstacles and perils, and silently prepares its hour of satisfaction, all the better and more delicious because so prepared. She had always loved him, then, since the blessed morning when their eyes had crossed in Our Lady’s porch! And whilst he was circling those garden walls and complaining of her coldness, which seemed to him colder than the cold walls themselves, she had already given him her soul; and, full of constancy, with loving sagacity, suppressing the least sigh, lulling suspicion to sleep, she was preparing the radiant night in which she would also give him her body. Such firmness and such shrewd understanding in the affairs of love made her, in his eyes, all the more beautiful and the more to be desired! How impatiently he looked then at the sun, that lingered so that afternoon in its descent towards the mountains! In his room, with the lattice-blinds drawn, to concentrate his happiness the better, without resting, he lovingly made ready everything for his triumphal journey--fine clothing, dainty laces, a jerkin of black velvet and perfumed essences. Twice he went down to the stable to make certain that his horse was well shod and well groomed,