She thought, then, that she was back undiscovered in her room; and that she went to her basil pot, and with little labour coaxing the sweet thing whole from its nest, laid the handkerchief in the void and therein replaced the plant, burying her secret out of sight. And so, dropping tears upon its leaves, she went again to lie in her bed, trembling in a very ecstasy of reassurance. She had solved the heart-haunting mystery. It would blossom now. When they came to wait upon her she was asleep. She slept as she had not done as yet. The burden of that riddle once lifted, nature must have its way with her. When she awoke at last, it was to a sense of peace such as she had not known for days. She was convalescent. The grave physicians said so, congratulating her discreetly on her recovery. From what? Something malarial, or tertian, probably. Her constitution had been tried by the strain of recent events--the obsequies, and so on. And so on. What did it matter if they knew--if anybody knew? She was only in a fever to substantiate her dream; and the moment she was left alone, she rose to do so. She was very weak; her eyes were unearthly bright; there was a pain upon her heart. Those were all very well, and dearly well, if only her dream would yield the thing she prayed of it. When she was convinced it was there, she wept for very joy. It was truly there, indeed--no need to trouble how it was brought, whether in a dreaming or a waking trance. The end was assured, and the promise would be fulfilled. Thenceforth, physically, indeed, she was restored. The restfulness engendered by that assurance helped her body’s healing. She felt it so herself, but without uneasiness for the result. What was to be was written, and no fretting could either alter or anticipate the end. In the meantime, untrammelled by material pains and weaknesses, her spirit was free to soar into those regions where life and love awaited it. This lower state had ceased of any meaning for her; like the dying poet of that other Isabella, she felt conscious somehow of leading a posthumous existence--as if her real self were elsewhere, blissfully sleeping out the hours, like the dead Adonis, until the appointed moment when Love should wake it. This sense of detachment was so absolute as to deceive her father into a belief in her complete resignation to what had happened and was destined to happen. She had been mad and was sane; but being so, he had no desire to torture a point which, with her convalescence, had ceased to be material. She awoke one morning to see him standing at her bed-foot. He stood stiff-necked, immovable, searching her face with his inquisitional Spanish eyes. Presently he stirred, and coming round the bed, lifted the pale slender hand that lay upon the coverlet, and, slipping a ring upon its betrothal finger, stood, retaining his hold, silently looking down. She smiled at him, then, and spoke, a little faintly: “Si, mio padre. It shall remain there.”