endured the
same exquisite agony for the same iniquitous purpose! In public,
charged to denounce innocent fellow-beings, or suffer; in private--in
those dark and fearful cells--exposed to all the horror and terror of
such persecution as we have faintly endeavored to describe. It is no
picture of the imagination, delighting to dwell on horrors. Would that
it were! Its parallel will be found, again and again repeated, in the
annals--not of the Inquisition alone--but of every European state
where the Romanists held sway.

But Marie's prayer for superhuman strength had been heard. No cry,
scarcely a groan, escaped her. She saw Don Luis at her side; she
heard his hissing whisper that there was yet time to retract and
be released; but she deigned him no reply whatever. It was not his
purpose to try her endurance to the utmost in the first, second, or
third trial; though, so enraged at her calmness, as scarcely to be
able to restrain it even before his colleagues, and with difficulty
controlling his fiendish desire to increase the torture to its utmost
at once, he remanded her to her dungeon till his further pleasure
should be known. She had fainted under the intolerable pain, and lay
for many successive hours, too exhausted even to raise to her parched
lips the pitcher of water lying near her. And even the gradual
cessation of suffering, the sensation of returning power, brought with
them the agonized thought, that they did but herald increased and
increasing torture.

One night--she knew not how long after she had been remanded to her
cell, but, counting by suffering, it felt many weary nights and
days--she sunk into a sleep or trance, which transported her to her
early home in the Vale of Cedars. Her mother seemed again to stand
before her; and she thought, as she heard her caressing voice, and met
the glance of her dove-like eyes, she laid her head on her bosom, as
she was wont to do in her happy childhood; and peace seemed to sink
into her heart so blessedly, so deeply, that the very fever of her
frame departed. A voice aroused her with a start; it was so like her
mother's, that the dream seemed lingering still.

"Marie, my beloved one," murmured the voice, and a breath fanned
her cheek, as if some one were leaning over her. She unclosed her
eyes--the words, the voice, still so kept up the illusion, though
the tones were deeper than a woman's, that even the hated dress of
a familiar of the Inquisition could not creat