“I’ll do it if she dares to touch her again!” says Hermoine savagely to Guy; then whispers gently: “Alida, go to my chamber and stay; there you are safe,” next breaks out: “Let her dare to lay hand on you and I’ll not respect even her gray hairs!” “Perdition! my wig!” screams La Pariza, and they leave her tearing her scant locks. They have intruded into the apartment of romantic old age, and the Countess without false hair and other artifices for effacing the traces of decay makes an ugly picture that now becomes an awful one; for on her face is now added to the ravages of time—demoniac hate. As Guy leads his sweetheart away he whispers: “Did you note her countenance? She is now your enemy for life.” “Pish! What care I?” laughs Doña de Alva haughtily. Then she murmurs: “I’m glad you stopped me from degrading myself to her level. Had I touched her I should have been ashamed of it. When I’m thine by the rights of Mother Church, bring a man’s forbearance to bear upon my woman’s weakness.” This kind of adulation makes Guy feel ashamed of himself, for he is in his brawls with equals very headstrong and sometimes cruel and bloodthirsty, and among his sailors he is not light of hand with marling-spike and rope’s end when it is necessary for discipline of ship. Hermoine’s very glorification of him makes Chester hesitate to tell her that he has been, in all his wooing of her, another being than the Guido Amati she thinks she loves. But all the same he would not lose her for the world, and will take the chance even of her reproach and anger to make her his by right of church in face of man and God. To do this he has many preparations still to make. And getting from her arms once more he bids her adieu, saying: “To-morrow evening at nine o’clock precisely. Remember, I shall have for you a little water fête. The moon will not be up, but it will rise before we return. Will you go for a sail on the water with me to-morrow night, my love?” “Yes, and to-night if you would ask me,” laughs the girl. Then she says wistfully: “If papa were only here, we could take him with us.” “I—I pray heaven no,” answers her lover with a start. “Oh, don’t fear, I am omnipotent over my Lord of Alva!” Kissing her hand to Guy and filled with this idea, Doña Hermoine runs back to the house. This confidence in her power over Philip’s Viceroy brings sudden changes over love’s young dream. The very next afternoon, with clanking spurs and covered with the dust of travel, escorted by some thirty dashing horsemen, my lord of Alva comes galloping up to Hermoine’s country house, there to receive a daughter’s welcome and a daughter’s love. And oh! the happiness of that meeting!