Ah, how soft, how tender at such times a woman's voice can be! The wind in the barley, the dove calling her mate, the distant murmur of a sheltered sea--these are not one-half so sweet. The angels' voices about the throne--they are not so human. Children's voices at play--they have known no sorrow, no sin. They are not so divine. "_It is I--Concha!_" "Ah, beloved, do not leave me--they may come again!" "_They cannot. They are dead!_" Keen as the clash of rapiers, triumphant as trumpets sounding the charge, rang the voice that was erstwhile so soft, so tender. "All the same, do not leave me! I need you, Concha!" Who would have believed that this swift and resolute Rollo, this firebrand adventurer of ours, would have been brought so low--or so high. But his words were better than all sweet singing in the ears of Concha Cabezos. She clasped his hand tightly and smiled. She would have spoken but could not. "Ah--I knew you would not leave me!" he murmured, turning a little towards her. "It was foolish to ask!" Then he was silent for a moment, and as she settled his head more easily on an extemporised pillow, he glanced towards the closed shutters of the little sacristy. "When will the morning come?" he asked wearily. For answer Concha threw open the outer door and the new-risen sun shone full upon his pale face. "_The morning is here!_" she said, with all the glory of it in her eyes. CHAPTER L AVE CONCHA IMPERATRIX! Thus ended the princely Abbey and its inmates. And so it stands unto this day, a desolation of charred beams, desecrated altars, fire-scarred walls roofless and weed o'ergrown, to witness if I lie. Time hath scarcely yet set its least finger-mark upon it. Under the white-hot southern sun and in that dry upland air, Montblanch may remain with scarce a change for many a hundred years. Ezquerra's hammer strokes are plain on the stones. The crowbar holes wherewith El Sarria drove out the flagstones over the torture chamber--once called the Place of the Holy Office--these any man may see who chooses to journey thither on mule-back, jolting _tartana_, or by the plain-song office of heel-and-toe. As to the brethren, they had had, thanks to Rollo Blair, due and sufficient warning. They mounted their white mules and rode over the mountains into France, by a secret way long settled upon and laid with friendly relays of food and equipage. Only the Father-Confessor, the gloomy and fanatic Anselmo, was found dead in his bed, whether from the excitement of reviving his ancient functions of Inquisitor-in-Chief, or from poison self-administered was never rightly known or indeed inquired into. Men had other things to think of in those days. His body was hastily huddled into a grave in the cloister, where, equally with those of mitred priors and nobles of twenty descents, you may see the wild roses clambering about it in the spring.