mmon cause, he
announced, and he would do it that very night in which it was supposed
that he was absent at Palacios.

At last, when all had gone, and the house was still again, Isabella and
her lover crept forth from their concealment, and in the light of the
lamp which Susan had left burning each looked into the other's white,
startled face. So shaken was Don Rodrigo with horror of what he had
overheard, and with the terror of discovery, that it was with difficulty
he kept his teeth from chattering.

"Heaven protect us!" he gasped. "What Judaizing was this?"

"Judaizing!" she echoed. It was the term applied to apostacy, to the
relapse of New-Christians to Judaism, an offense to be expiated at the
stake. "Here was no Judaizing. Are you mad, Rodrigo? You heard no single
word that sinned against the Faith."

"Did I not? I heard treason enough to."

"No, nor treason either. You heard honourable, upright men considering
measures of defence against oppression, injustice, and evil
acquisitiveness masquerading in the holy garments of religion."

He stared askance at her for a moment, then his full lips curled into a
sneer. "Of course you would seek to justify them," he said. "You are of
that foul brood yourself. But you cannot think to cozen me, who am of
clean Old-christian blood and a true son of Mother Church. These men
plot evil against the Holy Inquisition. Is that not Judaizing when it is
done by Jews?"

She was white to the lips, and a new horror stared at him from her
great dark eyes; her lovely bosom rose and fell in tumult. Yet still she
sought to reason with him.

"They are not Jews--not one of them. Why, Perez is himself in holy
orders. All of them are Christians, and..."

"Newly-baptized!" he broke in, sneering viciously. "A defilement of that
holy sacrament to gain them worldly advantages. That is revealed by what
passed here just now. Jews they were born, the sons of Jews, and Jews
they remain under their cloak of mock Christianity, to be damned as
Jews in the end." He was panting now with fiery indignation; a holy zeal
inflamed this profligate defiler. "God forgive me that ever I entered
here. Yet I do believe that it was His will that I should come to
overhear what is being plotted. Let me depart from hence."

With a passionate gesture of abhorrence he swung towards the door. Her
clutch upon his arm arrested him.

"Whither do you go?" she asked trim sharply. He looked now into her
eyes, and of a