elf, could he but have recalled the words of
insult offered to one so noble; not for the danger to himself from
their threatening nature, but for the injurious injustice done to the
man from whom he had received a hundred acts of little unobtrusive
kindnesses, and whom he had once revered as the model of every thing
virtuous and noble--services which Morales had rendered him, felt
gratefully perhaps at the time, but forgotten in the absorption of
thought or press of occupation during his sojourn in Sicily, now
rushed back upon him, marking him ingrate as well as dishonored. All
that had happened he regarded as Divine judgment on an unspoken,
unacted, but not the less encouraged sin. The fact that his sword had
done the deed, convinced him that his destruction had been connived
at, as well as that of Morales. A suspicion as to the designer, if not
the actual doer of the deed, had indeed taken possession of him; but
it was an idea so wild, so unfounded, that he dared not give it words.

From the idea of death, and such a death, his whole soul indeed
revolted; but to avert it seemed so utterly impossible, that he
bent his proud spirit unceasingly to its anticipation; and with the
spiritual aid of the good and feeling Father Francis, in some degree
succeeded. It was not the horror of his personal fate alone which bade
him so shrink from death. Marie was free once more; nay, had from
the moment of her dread avowal--made, he intuitively felt, to save
him--become, if possible, dearer, more passionately loved than before.
And, oh! how terrible is the anticipation of early death to those that
love!--the only trial which bids even the most truly spiritual, yet
while on earth still _human_ heart, forget that if earth is loved and
lovely, heaven _must_ be lovelier still.

From Don Felix d'Estaban, his friendly warder, he heard of Isabella's
humane intentions toward her; that her senses had been restored, and
she was, to all appearance, the same in health as she had been since
her husband's death; only evidently suffering more, which might be
easily accounted for from the changed position in which the knowledge
of her unbelief had placed her with all the members of Isabella's
court; that the only agitation she had evinced was, when threatened
with a visit from Father Francis--who, finding nothing in the mansion
of Don Ferdinand Morales to confirm the truth of her confession,
had declared his conviction that there must be some secre