we have a family
tomb where my ancestors have been laid to rest since the sixteenth
century. It is the Renaissance mausoleum of the picture hanging in your
room. The marble tomb stands in the middle of an oak wood, not far from
a little brook, and it is cool and still there. I shall lie there some
day, wherever I may die, and I have assigned you a place beside me.
Promise me, Wilhelm, that you will accept it. Promise me that you, in
your turn, will make the necessary arrangements for your remains to be
brought at last to our vega. I do not know if I may ever belong to you
as your wife in my lifetime, but in death I want to have you forever at
my side. Grant me this consolation. Give me your hand upon it."

Great tears welled slowly into the hazel eyes, and it was plainly of
such sacred and earnest import to her that Wilhelm had not the heart to
smile at her strained and sentimental idea. Moved and touched, he
clasped her to his heart in silence.

CHAPTER XII.

TANNHAUSER'S FLIGHT.

"To be as much alone with you in great Paris as if we were on a desert
island in the Pacific--in the midst of the crowd, yet having no part
with it; spectators of its amusing doings, and yet unnoticed by it. You
all my world, and I yours--what a sweet and perfect dream!" Thus Pilar
as she went out in fine weather, thickly veiled, on Wilhelm's arm into
the crowded streets, and she did her utmost to prolong the charming
delusion as far as possible. She paid no visits, invited no one to the
house, avoided every familiar face in the street. Through the consul
and Don Antonio, however, her more immediate circle got wind by degrees
of her return to Paris, and visitors began to call at the little house
on the Boulevard Pereire who would not submit to being sent away. With
the versatility of mind peculiar to her, Pilar soon adapted herself to
the new position of affairs, and tried to make the best of it. Of
course it would have been infinitely more agreeable, she said to
Wilhelm, to have been able to remain longer in their delicious
seclusion, but, sooner or later, social life would have to be resumed,
and it was best he should make a beginning now. "Do not be afraid," she
added, "that I shall ask you to make the acquaintance of all the asses
and parrots that have chattered and gesticulated round me for years.
You shall only know a really select few, who are fond of me, and who
can offer you friendship and appreciation."

And so the ma