"Ay, indeed, Valentine la Niña, even as you say," responded the Jesuit of Toledo calmly; "it is not fair that only men should labour for the good of Holy Church. Did not Mary, the wife of Herod's steward, and that other Mary, minister to the Son of the Holy Virgin? It is so written. If, then, sainted women followed Him in life, watched by His cross, and prepared His body for burial, surely in these evil times, when the Church of Peter trembles on its rock, we, who fight for the faith, have not the right to refuse the ministry of Valentine la Niña or another?" And so, since Mariana was of Toledo and high in favour with Philip the King, and with the Archbishop Primate of all Spain, besides being more powerful than the General of his own Order, Dom Teruel and Frey Tullio bowed their heads and did as they were commanded. "Give you the order," said Teruel to Mariana, with a faint, hateful smile, for he would have preferred Serra, a newly-wetted rope, and a slow fire. But this was by no means Mariana's way. "I but advise," he said. "How can I do otherwise, a poor Jesuit wanderer, dependent on your bounty for hospitality--I and my niece. I fear I must claim also a place for her here, when she leaves the house and protection of the Countess of Livia." So into the chamber of light and silence went the Abbé John, after his first examination. He saw around him and above walls and ceilings painted all over with gigantic human eyes--the pupil of each being hollow--and watchers were set continually without, or, at least, the Abbé John thought they were. Within twelve hours he was raging madly about his cell, striving to reach and shiver those watching eyes everywhere about him. He kicked at the inlaid pavements. He tried to tear away from his bed-head and from the foot, those huge, open eyes with the dark, watchful pupils. But his riding-boots had been removed, and with his hempen _alpargatas_ he could do nothing. No one took the least notice of his cries. Even the walls seemed echoless and dead, save for the watching eyes, which, after the first day, followed him about the room as he paced from end to end, restless as a wild creature newly caged. He saw them in his sleep. He dreamed of eyes. They chased him across great smoking cities, over plains without mark or bound, save the brown circle of the horizon, through the thick coverts of virgin forests. He could not shut them out. He could not escape them. He covered his face with his hand, and they looked in between his fingers, parting them that they might look. He drew his cloak's hood about his brow, he heaped coverings on his head. It was all in vain. He began to babble to the walls, till he realised that these had ears as well as eyes. On the fourth day he wept aloud. He had long refused to eat, though he drank much. He began to go mad, and kept repeating the words to himself, "I am going mad! I am going mad!"