which his breast heaved more strongly than a sea, and his whole soul fled from him in tumult in a look that devoured her. And she too raised her eyes to Don Ruy, but eyes reposeful and serene, without a gleam of curiosity or even of consciousness that they were exchanging glances with other eyes so inflamed and darkened by desire. The young knight abstained from entering the church from the pious fear of not giving to his divine Godmother the attention which would, he knew, be all taken up by her who, though only human, was already mistress of his heart and deified there. He waited eagerly at the door among the beggars, parching the carnations with the heat of his trembling hands, and thinking how long-drawn-out was the rosary she was saying, and, as soon as Donna Leonor began to descend the nave, he felt within his soul the sweet rustling of the thick silks she dragged over the stone slabs. The white lady passed by, and the same absent look, heedless and calm, which she cast over the beggars and the square, she let fall over him, either because she did not comprehend that youth who had suddenly turned so pale, or because she did not yet distinguish him from things and forms which were of no account to her. Don Ruy moved away, sighing deeply, and, once in his room, devoutly placed before the image of the Virgin the flowers which he had not offered at her altar in the church. His whole life then became one long complaint at finding such coldness and cruelty in that woman, unique amongst women, who had taken hold of his light and wandering heart and made it serious. With a hope which he clearly foresaw would prove deceptive, he began to pace round the lofty garden walls; or, muffled in his cloak, leaning against a corner, spent slow hours contemplating the bars of the lattice windows, black and thick like those of a prison. The walls did not part asunder, nor did a single ray of hopeful light issue from the gratings. The whole mansion was like a sepulchre where lay an insensible creature, and behind the cold stones there was also a cold breast. To give vent to his feelings he composed with pious care, during watchful nights over parchment, lamentable verses which failed to relieve him. Before the altar of Our Lady of the Pillar, on the same slabs where he had seen her kneeling, he rested his knees and stayed without words of prayer, in bitter-sweet musing, hoping that his heart would be calmed and solaced under the influence of Her who calms and solaces all. But he always rose up more miserable, and with only the feeling of how cold and hard were the stones on which he had knelt. The whole world seemed to him to contain nought save severity and coldness. On other bright Sunday mornings he met Donna Leonor, and her eyes always remained heedless, and as though unmindful; or, when they crossed his, they were so innocent and free from all emotion that Don Ruy would have preferred them offended and darting anger, or haughtily averted in