ts from this earth; and if there is no
other way------"

"What way? What am I expected to do?"

"My son, I had observed your emotion. We, the appointed confidants
of men's frailties, are quick to discern the signs of their innermost
feelings. Let me tell you that my cherished daughter in God, Senorita
Dona Seraphina Riego, is with Don Carlos, the virtual head of the
family, since his Excellency Don Balthasar is in a state of, I may say,
infantile innocence."

"What do you mean, father?" I faltered.

"She is waiting for you with him," he pronounced, looking up. And as his
solemnity seemed to have deprived me of my power to move, he added, with
his ordinary simplicity, "Why, my son, she is, I may say, not wholly
indifferent to your person."

I could not have dropped more suddenly into the chair had the good
_padre_ discharged a pistol into my breast. He went away; and when I
leapt up, I saw a young man in black velvet and white ruffles staring
at me out of the large mirror set frameless into the wall, like the
apparition of a Spanish ghost with my own English face.

When I ran out, the moon had sunk below the ridge of the roof; the whole
quadrangle of the Casa had turned black under the stars, with only a
yellow glimmer of light falling into the well of the court from the lamp
under the vaulted gateway. The form of the priest had gone out of sight,
and a far-away knocking, mingling with my footfalls, seemed to be part
of the tumult within my heart. Below, a voice at the gate challenged,
"Who goes there?" I ran on. Two tiny flames burned before Carlos' door
at the end of the long vista, and two of Seraphina's maids shrank away
from the great mahogany panels at my approach. The candlesticks trembled
askew in their hands; the wax guttered down, and the taller of the two
girls, with an uncovered long neck, gazed at me out of big sleepy
eyes in a sort of dumb wonder. The teeth of the plump little one--La
Chica--rattled violently like castanets. She moved aside with a
hysterical little laugh, and glanced upwards at me.

I stopped, as if I had intruded; of all the persons in the sick-room,
not one turned a head. The stillness of the lights, of things, of the
air, seemed to have passed into Seraphina's face. She stood with a stiff
carriage under the heavy hangings of the bed, looking very Spanish and
romantic in her short black skirt, a black lace shawl enveloping her
head, her shoulders, her arms, as low as the waist. He