ance of the church for long years of fraud, nor from the secret
and awful tribunal of whose existence she was conscious (though not of
its close vicinity); not merely these, but danger from the wrath, and
terrors of the secret members of her own faith, who might naturally
imagine their own safety endangered in the suspicion, engendered by
her rash confession. Of all this she had thought; had believed herself
strengthened to brave and bear every possible suffering, rather than
breathe those words which must seal Stanley's fate; but now that she
had spoken, though she would not have recalled them if she could--such
an overpowering, crushing sense of all she had drawn upon herself,
such fearful, spectral shapes of indefinable horror came upon her,
that, as the Sub-Prior stood again before her with the uplifted cross,
bidding her kneel and acknowledge him whose fate it imaged--she burst
into a wild hysteric laugh, and fell prone upon the floor.

"Said I not she was mad? And what need was there for this unmanly
violence?" angrily exclaimed the Monarch; and, starting from his seat,
he authoritatively waved back the denouncing monks, and himself bent
over Marie. The Duke of Murcia, Don Felix d'Estaban, the Lord of
Aguilar, and several other nobles following the Sovereign's example,
hastened to her assistance. But to restore animation was not in their
power, and on the King's whispered commands, Don Felix gently, even
tenderly raised her, and bore her in his arms from the hall. Even in
that moment of excitement Ferdinand could not forbear glancing at the
prisoner, whose passionate struggles to escape from the guard, when
Marie fell, had been noticed by all, and unhappily, combined with, his
previous irritation, but confirmed the unspoken suspicions of many as
to the real cause of his enmity against Don Ferdinand. The expression
of his countenance was of such contending, terrible suffering, that
the King hastily withdrew his gaze, vainly endeavoring to disbelieve,
as he had done, the truth of Garcia's charge.

Order was at length universally restored, and after a brief silence,
the chief of the Santa Hermandad demanded of the prisoner if he had
aught to say in his defence, or reply himself to Don Luis Garcia's
charge. The reply was a stern, determined negative; and, deputed so to
do by the Sub-Prior, who seemed so absorbed in the horror of Marie's
daring avowal, as to be incapable of further interference, the Hermano
proceeded