"Let me put this ring on your finger, lest you forget," said the cavalier. "It was my mother's ring, and never during her lifetime heard anything but prayers and hymns. It is saintly, and worthy of thee." "No, my Lord, I may not. Grandmother would inquire about it. I cannot keep it; but fear not my forgetting: I shall never forget you." "Will you ever want to see me, Agnes?" "I hope not, since it is not best. But you do not go." "Well, then, farewell, my little wife! farewell, till I claim thee!" said the cavalier, as he kissed her hand, and vaulted over the wall. "How strange that I _cannot_ make him understand!" said Agnes, when he was gone. "I must have sinned, I must have done wrong; but I have been trying all the while to do right. Why would he stay so and look at me so with those deep eyes? I was very hard with him,--very! I trembled for him, I was so severe; and yet it has not discouraged him enough. How strange that he would call me so, after all, when I explained to him I never could marry!--Must I tell all this to Father Francesco? How dreadful! How he looked at me before! How he trembled and turned away from me! What will he think now? Ah, me! why must I tell _him_? If I could only confess to my mother Theresa, that would be easier. We have a mother in heaven to hear us; why should we not have a mother on earth? Father Francesco frightens me so! His eyes burn me! They seem to burn into my soul, and he seems angry with me sometimes, and sometimes looks at me so strangely! Dear, blessed Mother," she said, kneeling at the shrine, "help thy little child! I do not want to do wrong: I want to do right. Oh that I could come and live with thee!"