This house, which had been bequeathed to him by his uncle, an Archdeacon and Master of Canon Law, lay at the side and in the silent shadow of the Church of Our Lady of the Pillar; and facing it, across the square, where the three spouts of an ancient fountain sang their song, stood the dark and grated palace of Don Alonso de Lara, a nobleman of great wealth and surly manners, who, in a ripe and grey old age, had espoused a young lady famed throughout Castile for her white skin, her hair the colour of the sun’s rays and her neck like that of a royal heron. Now Don Ruy, at his birth, had had Our Lady of the Pillar for Godmother, and ever remained her devout and loyal servitor, though, as he was a man of high spirit and gay, he loved arms, the chase, gallant regales, and even, now and then, a noisy night in a tavern with cards and tankards of wine. Love, and his convenient nearness to the holy place, had led him to adopt the pious practice since his arrival in Segovia of visiting his divine Godmother each morning at the hour of Prime and begging in three _Ave Maria’s_ her blessing and graces. Again, as darkness came on, even after a hard run over field and mountain with harriers or falcon, he was wont to return and murmur sweetly a _Salve Regina_ at the Vesper salutation; while, every Sunday, he bought of a Moorish flower-woman in the square a spray of jonquils or pinks or simple roses, and spread them with tenderness and gallant care in front of Our Lady’s altar. Now to this venerated Church of the Pillar came also each Sunday Donna Leonor, the famous and beautiful wife of the Lord of Lara, accompanied by a surly attendant with eyes harder and wider open than those of an owl, and by two powerful lackeys, who guarded her on either side like towers. So jealous was Don Alonso, that he only permitted this fugitive visit because his confessor had strictly enjoined it on him, and for fear of offending Our Lady his neighbour, and he greedily noted their every step and their loitering from between the iron bars of a latticed window.