We left him, followed by his train, riding through the narrow and winding street of Leiria, towards the gate by which he had entered the previous evening. As he wound down the rugged pathway, after passing the gates, he cast a last look at the battered moss-grown walls, and ruined towers of that ancient town, now for ever associated in his mind with the fair young being from whom he had there parted, and then, putting spurs to his horse, he galloped on, at the great risk of breaking his neck, his followers in vain endeavouring to keep him in view. His luggage also would certainly have been left to the mercy of the brigands, had he not fortunately recollected that such might be its fate; so he wisely drew in his rein, and allowed his horse to proceed at its own pace till his party should come up with him. He could not discover the reason, but so it was, that, although proceeding towards his home, he did not enjoy his morning ride half so much as that of the last evening. It could not be because a certain young lady was travelling south while he was going north; for he thought, and fancied that he thought very wisely, that he could not take any interest in one, although he acknowledged her to be very lovely, whom he had neither seen nor heard of twenty hours before. He concluded that it was because he disliked solitude, and he had now no one with whom to converse; but, for some reason or other, he did not think half so much of the infidelity and treachery of Donna Theresa; and when he did think of the subject, he began rather to pity her, and to congratulate himself on having escaped from the toils of a heartless coquette. It was some time, however, before the last happy idea occurred to him, for at first his feelings towards her were rather bitter; then he was angry with himself for indulging in them, and then very miserable, and then, as if by magic, appeared the portrait he had Daguerreo-typed in the morning, of Donna Clara in her travelling mantle of blue silk.