retired to Segovia, his Leonor, the supreme good of his life, and so unexpectedly acquired for a moment, would straightway fall again under the power of another master! What did it matter? Let troubles and jealousies come afterwards! That night was magnificently his, the whole world an empty vision, and the one reality that dimly-lighted room at Cabril, where she would await him with unbound hair! Eagerly he descended the stairs and threw himself on his horse; then, for prudence’ sake, he crossed the square very slowly, with his sombrero worn clear of his face, as though he were making an ordinary promenade in search of the freshness of night outside the walls. No meeting disturbed him until he got to the gate of St. Mauros. There, a beggar, who was squatted in the darkness of an arch monotonously playing his _sanfona_, begged with a whine the Virgin and all the Saints to have that gentle knight in their sweet and holy guard. Don Ruy had stopped to throw him an alms, when he remembered that he had not been that evening to the church at the hour of vespers to pray and beg a blessing of his divine Godmother. He immediately leapt down from his horse, for, just close to the old arch, a lamp flickered, lighting a picture. It was an image of the Virgin, with her breast transfixed by seven swords. Don Ruy knelt, rested his hat on the flags, and with raised hands said a _Salve Regina_ with passionate ardour. The yellow reflection of the light enveloped the face of Our Lady, who, either not feeling the pain of the seven points, or as if they only gave her ineffable joys, smiled with bright red lips. Whilst he was praying, the small bell in the convent of St. Dominic, on one side, began to sound the Agony. In the black shadow of the arch the _sanfona_ ceased, and the beggar murmured, 'There lies a friar dying!’ Don Ruy said an _Ave Maria_ for the friar who was dying. The Virgin of the seven swords smiled sweetly--the passing bell, then, was not a bad omen! Don Ruy mounted his horse gaily and set off. Beyond the gate of St. Mauros, after passing some potters’ hovels, the road followed a narrow, black course between lofty aloes. Behind the low hills, at the bottom of the dark plain, rose the first reflection, yellow and languid, of the full moon, which was still hidden. Don Ruy rode slowly, fearing to reach Cabril very early, before the maidservants and the men had finished their evening work and the rosary. Why had not Donna Leonor appointed him an hour in her clear and deliberate letter?... Then his imagination ran on ahead, broke into the garden at Cabril, and flew up the promised ladder, and he, too, let himself go after it in an eager race that tore up the stones of the ill-laid road. Then he drew in his panting horse. It was early! It was early! And he resumed his weary pace, feeling his heart beat against his breast like an imprisoned bird against the bars.