e sensation, momentary as it was,
increased the virulence of other passions; but then was not the hour
for their betrayal. In low, deep tones, he commenced the mockery of a
trial. That her avowal of her faith would elude torture, by at once
condemning her to the flames, was disregarded. She was formally
accused of blasphemy and heresy, and threatened with the severest
vengeance of the church which she had reviled; but that this case of
personal guilt would be mercifully laid aside for the present, for
still more important considerations. Was her late husband, they
demanded, of the same blaspheming creed as herself? And a list of
names, comprising some of the highest families of Spain, was read out
and laid before her, with the stern command to affix a mark against
all who, like herself, had relapsed into the foul heresy of their
ancestors--to do this, or the torture should wring it from her.

But the weakness of humanity had passed; and so calm, so collected, so
firm, was the prisoner's resolute refusal to answer either question,
that the familiar to whom she had clung for mercy looked at her with
wonder. Again and again she was questioned; instruments of torture
were brought before her--one of the first and slightest used--more
to terrify than actually to torture, for that was not yet the Grand
Inquisitor's design; and still she was firm, calm, unalterable in her
resolution to refuse reply. And then Don Luis spoke of mercy, which
was to consist of imprisonment in solitude and darkness, to allow time
for reflection on her final answer--a concession, he said, in a tone
far more terrifying to Marie than even the horrors around her,
only granted in consideration of her age and sex. None opposed the
sentence; and she was conducted to a close and narrow cell, in which
no light could penetrate save through a narrow chink in the roof.

How many days and nights thus passed the hapless prisoner could not
have told, for there was nothing to mark the hours. Her food was
delivered to her by means of a turn-screw in the wall, so that not
even the sight of a fellow-creature could disturb her solitude, or
give her the faintest hope of exciting human pity. Her sole hope, her
sole refuge was in prayer; and, oh! how blessed was the calm, the
confidence it gave.

So scanty was her allowance of food, that more than once the thought,
crossed her, whether or not, death by famine would be her allotted
doom; and human nature shuddered, but