e moon.
Tracking, with an instinct too well trained to become deceptive, the
walks of the garden, while a dark mass shut out the "lamp of night," I
reached my hut, when suddenly, on a little stone bench beside the door,
I beheld a female figure seated. She was scarcely four yards from
where I stood, and in the full glare of the moonlight as palpable as at
noonday. She was tall and elegantly formed; her air and carriage, even
beneath the coarse folds of a common dress of black serge, such as
bespoke condition; her hands, too, were white as marble, and finely and
delicately formed; in one of them she held a velvet mask, and I watched
with anxiety to see the face from which it had been removed, which was
still averted from me. At last she turned slowly round, and I could
perceive that her features, although worn by evident suffering and
sorrow, had once been beautiful; the traits were in perfect symmetry;
the mouth alone had a character of severity somewhat at variance with
the rest, but its outline was faultless,--the expression only being
unpleasing. The dark circles around the eyes attested the work of years
of grief, bitter and corroding.

What should I do,--advance boldly, or retire noiselessly from the spot?
If the first alternative presented perhaps the only chance of ever
speaking to her, it might also prevent her ever again visiting the
garden. This was a difficulty; and ere I had time to solve it, she arose
to leave the spot. I coughed slightly: she halted and looked around,
without any semblance of terror or even surprise, and so we stood face
to face.

"You should have been on your rounds on this hour!" said she, with a
manner of almost stern expression, and using the Spanish language.

"So I should, Senhora; but having forgot a part of my equipment, I
returned to seek it."

"They would punish you severely if it were known," said she, in the same
tone.

"I am aware of that," replied I; "and yet I would incur the penalty
twice over to have seen one of whom my thoughts for every hour these
months past have been full."

"Of me? You speak of me?"

"Yes, Senhora, of you. I know the presumption of my words; but bethink
you that it is not in such a spirit they are uttered, but as the cry of
one humbled and humiliated to the very dust, and who, on looking at you,
remembers the link that binds him to his fellows, and for the instant
rises above the degradation of his sad condition."

"And it is through _me_,-