too wild and strange for thy hair-brained fancy to believe? Marvellous
it must be indeed!"

Isabella spoke jestingly, but her heart was not with her words: and
Catherine replied with tears starting to her eyes, "Oh, do not speak
thus, my liege. It is indeed no theme for jest." And she continued so
rapidly, that to any but the quickened mind of Isabella, her words
must have seemed unintelligible. "They say she is a heretic, royal
madam! Nay, worse--a blaspheming unbeliever; that she has refused to
take the oath, on plea of not believing in the Holy Catholic Church;
that she has insulted, has trampled on the sacred cross! Nor is
this all--worse, yet worse; they say she has proclaimed herself a
JEWESS!--an abhorred, an unbelieving Jewess!"

A general start and loud exclamation of horror was the natural
rejoinder to this unlooked-for intelligence; but not from Isabella,
whose flashing eyes were still fixed on the young girl's face, as to
read in her soul the confirmation of these strange words. "What dost
thou say?" she said at length, and so slowly, a second might have
intervened between each word. "Speak! let me hear again! A Jewess!
Santa Maria! But no; it _cannot_ be. They must have told thee false!"

So the Queen spoke; but ere Catherine had concluded a calmer
repetition of the tale, Marie's words of the preceding evening rushed
back on her mind, confirming it but too surely. "To-morrow all will be
distinct and clear enough!" she had said; ay, distinct it was; and
so engrossingly intense became the thoughts thronging in her mind,
bewildering succession, that Isabella sat motionless, her brow leaning
on her hand, wholly unconscious of the lapse of time.

A confusion in the gallery, and the words, "The King! the King!"
roused her at length; and never was the appearance of Ferdinand more
welcome, not only to Isabella, but to her attendants, as giving them
the longed-for opportunity to retire, and so satisfy curiosity, and
give vent to the wonderment which, from their compelled silence in
Isabella's presence, had actually become intolerable.

Ferdinand speedily narrated the affairs of the morning, and concluded
by inquiring if any thing had occurred in her interview with Marie to
excite suspicion of her mad design. The Queen replied by relating, in
her turn, all that had passed between them. The idea of madness could
no longer exist; there was not the faintest hope that in a moment of
frenzy she had spoken falsely.