and clasped in that of his betrothed. Her ear was very near his lips,
and when he wandered a little she soothed him with the tender croonings
of a mother over a sick child, moaning and cooing over him with
inarticulate love, her hands a hundred times lifted to caress him, but
ever fluttering aside lest they should awake the beloved from his
repose.

"Who is it?" he said once, more clearly than usual, yet with remains of
fear in his eyes very pitiful to see.

"It is I--Concha!"

Ah, how soft, how tender at such times a woman's voice can be! The wind
in the barley, the dove calling her mate, the distant murmur of a
sheltered sea--these are not one-half so sweet. The angels' voices about
the throne--they are not so human. Children's voices at play--they have
known no sorrow, no sin. They are not so divine.

"_It is I--Concha!_"

"Ah, beloved, do not leave me--they may come again!"

"_They cannot. They are dead!_"

Keen as the clash of rapiers, triumphant as trumpets sounding the
charge, rang the voice that was erstwhile so soft, so tender.

"All the same, do not leave me! I need you, Concha!"

Who would have believed that this swift and resolute Rollo, this
firebrand adventurer of ours, would have been brought so low--or so
high. But his words were better than all sweet singing in the ears of
Concha Cabezos. She clasped his hand tightly and smiled. She would have
spoken but could not.

"Ah--I knew you would not leave me!" he murmured, turning a little
towards her. "It was foolish to ask!"

Then he was silent for a moment, and as she settled his head more easily
on an extemporised pillow, he glanced towards the closed shutters of the
little sacristy.

"When will the morning come?" he asked wearily.

For answer Concha threw open the outer door and the new-risen sun shone
full upon his pale face.

"_The morning is here!_" she said, with all the glory of it in her
eyes.

CHAPTER L

AVE CONCHA IMPERATRIX!

Thus ended the princely Abbey and its inmates. And so it stands unto
this day, a desolation of charred beams, desecrated altars, fire-scarred
walls roofless and weed o'ergrown, to witness if I lie. Time hath
scarcely yet set its least finger-mark upon it. Under the white-hot
southern sun and in that dry upland air, Montblanch may remain with
scarce a change for many a hundred years. Ezquerra's hammer strokes are
plain on the stones. The crowbar holes wherewith El Sarria drove out the
flagstones