te. In these I also encountered
ambiguity of expression; whether I construed it aright, time would tell.
Perhaps my wish was too much parent to my thoughts: but it was with an
exulting heart I read the closing sentence and rode forth from the
gateway.

CHAPTER TEN.

AN OLD ENMITY.

I rode slowly, and but a few paces before reining up my horse. Although
I was under the impression that it would be useless remaining, and that
an interview with Isolina was impossible--for that day at least--I could
not divest myself of the desire to linger a little longer near the spot.
Perhaps she might appear again upon the azotea; if but for a moment; if
but to wave her hand, and waft me an adieu; if but--

When a short distance separated me from the walls, I drew up; and
turning in the saddle, glanced back to the parapet. A face was there,
where hers had been; but, oh, the contrast between her lovely features
and those that now met my gaze! Hyperion to the Satyr! Not that the
face now before me was ugly or ill-featured. There are some, and women
too, who would have termed it handsome; to my eyes it was hideous! Let
me confess that this hideousness, or more properly its cause, rested in
the moral, rather than the physical expression; perhaps, too, little of
it might have been found in my own heart. Under other circumstances, I
might not have criticised that face so harshly. All the world did not
agree with me about the face of Rafael Ijurra--for it was he who was
gazing over the parapet.

Our eyes met; and that first glance stamped the relationship between
us--hostility for life! Not a word passed, and yet the looks of each
told the other, in the plainest language, "_I am your foe_." Had we
sworn it in wild oaths, in all the bitter hyperbole of insult, neither
of us would have felt it more profound and keen.

I shall not stay to analyse this feeling of sudden and unexpressed
hostility, though the philosophy of it is simple enough. You too have
experienced it--perhaps more than once in your life, without being
exactly able to explain it. I am not in that dilemma: I could explain
it easily enough; but it scarcely merits an explanation. Suffice to
say, that while gazing upon the face of that man, I entertained it in
all its strength.

I have called it an _unexpressed_ hostility. Therein I have spoken
without thought: it was fully expressed by both of us, though not in
words. Words are but weak symbols of a passi