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 and her oath, the performance of the only rite that could secure the being he held on terms so dreadfud even to himself.

We now return to the palazzo of Antaldi, where in a chamber communicating with the terrace at the gardens, sat Isidora and her infant son. "Why;" thought she, "did I promise another interview after the terrors of the past." Ten o'clock chimed from the chapel and convent, and the stranger was beside her. He shuddered at the last sound of the bell, and turning to Isidora, said in a low and melancholy tone, "hath not every year of my life since you have known me, been devoted to your safety— thy late husband owed his life to me —thy fortune was preserved by my exertions—and thy slumbering child owes his existence to this ready arm." "Ah! that arm that dreadful arm," shrieked Isidora. Montilla bent before her, and in a solemn voice exclaimed, “Dismiss thy terror and hear thy friend, whose fate now hangs on thine : by all that men hold great and terrible or deamons tremble at, I'm lost for ever, if when two hours have passed thou art not my bride." Isidora shook her head mournfully exclaiming, “ Alas! alas ! I dare not." "Let me perish then," added Montilla "but learn from me, thy life is threatened with the safety of thy infant." "Who will then deliver both." The eyes of Isidora where suffused with tears, at the idea of her friend and deliverer undergoing death and torture, after the sacrifices made for her. She bent forward, and extending her brand would have said, accept it; but the door of the, apartment was at that moment burst open, and Theodore, who had been on the watch, ran in, and with an earnest agony of manner, exclaimed, " Oh! Dona Isidora, beware! for you would ally yourself to a miserable outcast, who for a term of superhuman life, is sold to powers of darkness; only pause till midnight,