--this hero--and also, either by accident or design, that you had
succeeded in making him a great deal too fond of you for his peace of
mind; therefore I make excuses for your conduct, which, with all such
deductions, still remains perfectly intolerable."

He paused and looked at her as she sat on the edge of the couch, biting
her lip and glancing towards him now and again with a curious expression
on her beautiful face, in which grief, pride, and anger all had their
share. Yet at that moment Juanna was thinking not of Francisco and his
sacrifice, but of the man before her whom she had never loved so well
as now, when he spoke to her thus bitterly, paying her back in her own
coin.

"I cannot pretend to match you in scolding and violence," she said,
"therefore I will give up argument. Perhaps, however, when _you_ come
to your right mind, you will remember that my life is my own, and that I
gave nobody permission to save it at the cost of another person's."

"What is done, is done," answered Leonard moodily, for his anger had
burnt out. "Another time I will not interfere without your express wish.
By the way, my poor friend asked me to give you these," and he handed
her the rosary and the notebook; "he has written something for you to
read on the last sheet of the journal, and he bade me say that, should
you live to escape, he hoped that you will wear these in memory of him,"
and he touched the beads, "and also that you would not forget him in
your prayers."

Juanna took the journal, and holding it to the light, opened it at
hazard. The first thing that she saw was her own name, for in truth it
contained, among many other matters, a record of the priest's unhappy
infatuation from the first moment of their meeting, and also of his
pious efforts to overcome it. Turning the pages rapidly she came to the
last on which there was any writing. It ran as follows:

"Senora, of the circumstances under which I write these words you will
learn in due course. The pages of this journal, should you deign to
study them, will reveal to you my shameful weakness. But if I am a
priest I am also a man--who soon shall be neither, but, as I hope,
an immortal spirit--and the man in me, following those desires of the
spirit that find expression through the flesh, has sinned and loved you.
Forgive me this crime, as I trust it will be forgiven elsewhere, though
myself I cannot pardon it. Be happy with that noble gentleman who has
won your he