Her courage was manifest to me in the gentle and sad tones of her voice. I made her sit in a vast armchair of tapestry, in which she looked lost like a little child, and I took a stool at her feet. This is an unforgettable hour in my life in which not a word of love was spoken, which is not to be written of. The burly shadow of the priest lay motionless from the window right across the room; the flickering flame of a silver lamp made an unsteady white circle of light on the lofty ceiling above her head. A clock was beating gravely somewhere in the distant gloom, like the unperturbed heart of that silence, in which our understanding of each other was growing, even into a strength fit to withstand every tempest. “Escape by the sea,” I said aloud. “It would be, at least, like two lovers leaping hand in hand off a high rock, and nothing else.” Father Antonio’s bass voice spoke behind us. “It is better to jeopardize the sinful body that returns to the dust of which it is made than the redeemed soul, whose awful lot is eternity. Reflect.” Seraphina hung her head, but her hand did not tremble in mine. “My daughter,” the old man continued, “you have to confide your fate to a noble youth of elevated sentiments, and of a truly chivalrous heart....” “I trust him,” said Seraphina. And, as I heard her say this, it seemed really to me as if, in very truth, my sentiments were noble and my heart chivalrous. Such is the power of a girl’s voice. The door closed on us, and I felt very humble. But in the gallery Father Antonio leaned heavily on my shoulder. “I shall be a lonely old man,” he whispered faintly. “After all these years! Two great nobles; the end of a great house--a child I had seen grow up.... But I am less afraid for her now.” I shall not relate all the plans we made and rejected. Everything seemed impossible. We knew from Castro that O’Brien had gone to Havana, either to take the news of Don Balthasar’s death himself, or else to prevent the news spreading there too soon. Whatever his motive for leaving Rio Medio, he had left orders that the house should be respected under the most awful penalties, and that it should be watched so that no one left it. The Englishman was to be killed at sight. Not a hair on anybody else’s head was to be touched. To escape seemed impossible; then on the third day the thing came to pass. The way was found. Castro, who served me as if Carlos’ soul had passed into my body, but looked at me with a saturnine disdain, had arranged it all with Father Antonio.