ture
to summon her lady's parents. The message was itself a portentous
occurrence, for neither father nor mother had ever set foot within that
house since their daughter's marriage. In short, the whole household was
in anxiety, though no one divined the true cause of the old man's
illness. He lay sighing at intervals, so heavily that every sigh seemed
like the parting of soul and body. Leonora wept to see him in such a
state, whilst he beheld her feigned tears, as he deemed them, with a
bitter smile, that looked like the grin of insanity.

Leonora's parents now arrived, and were struck with no little
misgivings when they found both entrance doors open and the house all
lonely and silent. They went up to their son-in-law's room, and found
him in the posture he had all along maintained, with his eyes immovably
fixed on his wife, whom he held by the hands, whilst both were in tears;
she, because she saw his flow, and he at seeing how deceitfully she
wept. As soon as they entered the room, Carrizales begged them to be
seated, ordered all the domestics to withdraw except Marialonso, then
wiped his eyes, and with a calm voice and an air of perfect composure
addressed them thus:--

"I am sure, my respected father and mother-in-law, I need no other
witnesses than yourselves to the truth of what I have now to say to you
in the first place. You must well remember with how much love and what
tender affection I received your daughter when you bestowed her upon me
one year, one month, five days, and nine hours ago, as my lawful wife.
You know, also, with what liberality I behaved to her, for the
settlement I made upon her would have been more than enough to furnish
three young ladies of her quality with handsome marriage portions. You
must remember the pains I took to dress and adorn her with everything
she could desire or I could think of as suitable to her. It is known to
you likewise how, prompted by my natural disposition, fearful of the
evil to which I shall surely owe my death, and taught by the experience
of a long life to be on my guard against the many strange chances that
occur in life, I sought to guard this jewel which I had chosen and you
had bestowed upon me, with all possible care and caution. I raised the
walls of this house higher, blocked up all the windows that looked on
the street, doubled the locks of the doors, set up a turning-box as in a
nunnery, and perpetually banished from my dwelling every vestige of the