rriage vow between herself and
Macias. Suddenly they are interrupted by the approach of the Duke and of
Fernan Perez. Elvira throws herself between her husband and her lover,
and, having captured the sword of Macias, hands it to the Duke. Macias is
arrested after a tumultuous scene, and is led away, shaking off Elvira's
efforts to save him with bitter contempt, and breaking loose from her
with the prophecy that in every joy of the future and every incident of
her wedded life, the spectre of his murdered love will rise before her,
and 'every echo and every breeze repeat the fatal name, Macias.'

During the rapid give and take of this trying scene Kendal saw with a
kind of incredulous admiration that Isabel Bretherton never once lost
herself, that every gesture was true, every word struck home. Her
extraordinary grace, her marvellous beauty were all subordinated to,
forgotten almost in the supreme human passion speaking through her.
Macias, in the height of his despair while he was still alone with her,
had flung her his sword, declaring that he would go forth and seek his
death an unarmed and defenceless man. Then, when he becomes conscious of
the approach of his rival, the soldier's instinct revives in him; he
calls for his sword; she refuses it, and he makes a threatening step
towards her.

'_Mac_. My sword, Elvira.

_Elvira_. Never!

_Beatriz_. Ah! they are here. It is too late!

_Elvira_. Go! No blood shall flow for me. Come no nearer--or I sheathe it
in this breast.'

All the desperate energy of a loving woman driven to bay was in her
attitude as she repelled Macias, whereas in the agony of her last
clinging appeal to him, as his guards lead him off, every trace of her
momentary heroism had died away. Faint and trembling, recoiling from
every harsh word of his as from a blow, she had followed him towards the
door, and in her straining eyes and seeking, outstretched hands as she
watched him disappear, there was a pathos so true, so poignant, that it
laid a spell upon the audience, and the curtain fell amid a breathless
silence, which made the roar that almost instantly followed doubly
noticeable.

But it was in the third act that she won her highest triumph. The act
opened with a scene between Elvira and her husband, in which she implored
him, with the humility and hopelessness of grief, to allow her to retire
from the world and to hide the beauty which had wrought such ruin from
the light of day. He, in who