"Concealment is now useless: the time waxes, when I must think of other things: let us shrive one another even as two friars, and deceive one another no further than they. Methinks, what I do is for thy especial satisfaction.--An ill loon I am, to do so much for one who so bitterly censures me!--Who thou art, and what thou art, I know not: thou wert an angel, couldst thou give over chiding. The young Hilario del Milagro was the son of mine old friend Antonio:--a very noble boy,--I remember him well.--By heaven, thy hand is turned to ice! Art thou ill?" "Do I look so?" said the maiden, with a faint laugh. Her face had of a sudden become very pale, yet she spoke firmly, though not without a visible effort. "I listen to thy confession." "To mine! By my troth, I am confessing _thy_ sins and sorrows, and not mine. Well, Magdalena," he continued, "thy emotion is not amiss: it is not every maiden can think calmly of the death of her lover, knowing that his slayer is nigh.--I knew Hilario, when a boy,--ay, good faith, and Juan Lerma, too, his playmate and foster-brother, or his young page and varlet, I know not which. It was on Antonio's recommendation, that I afterwards took this foundling knave to my bosom, and made him--no, not what he _is_! for this is a thing of his own making. I sent him to Espanola to recruit: he loitered,--he returned to the house of Milagro--Shall I say more? Hilario, his brother, the son of his best friend and patron, was the betrothed husband of Magdalena; and him did the wolf-cub slay. Wo betide me! for it was I that taught him the use of his weapon.--Is not this enough? Accident hath brought thee to Mexico; thou seest the killer of thy lover; and, like a true daughter of Spain, thy heart is full of vengeance.--Is not this true? Disguise thy wrath in wild sarcasm no longer. Were he the king's son, he should----Pho! recall thy words: Is it not 'just?' is it not 'expedient?'" To these sinister demands, Magdalena replied with astonishing composure: "All this is well. Shrive now thyself--Hast _thou_ any cause, personally, to desire his death?" "Millions!" replied the general, grinding his teeth; "millions, millions! to which the death of Hilario, wringing at thy breast, is but as a gnat-bite to the sting of adders.--Millions, millions!" "Give him then to death," said Magdalena, with a voice so grave and passionless, that it instantly surprised the Conquistador out of his fury; "give him to death,--but let it be in _thy_ name, not _mine_." "Art thou wholly inexplicable?" he cried. "I read thee by the alphabet of human passions, and I make thee not out,--no, not so much as a word. Thy flesh warms and chills, thine eye swims and flashes, thy brow bends, thy lip curls, thy breast heaves, thy frame trembles; and yet art thou more than mortal, or less. When shall I understand thee?"