Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/251

Rh subdued sorrow, which spoke rather of despondency than passion; sometimes she raised her head from her breast, and smiled its she looked upward, or as her eyes rested on the crucifix and the death's head that were placed on the rude table by the pallet on which she sate. They were emblems of death here, and life hereafter, which, perhaps, afforded to her the sources of a two-fold consolation.

She was yet musing, when a slight tap at the door was heard, and the abbess of the convent appeared.

"Daughter," said she, "I have brought thee the comfort of a sacred visitor. The Queen of Spain, whose pious tenderness is maternally anxious for thy full contentment with thy lot, has sent hither a holy friar, whom she deems more soothing in his counsels than our brother Tomas, whose ardent zeal often terrifies those whom his honest spirit only desires to purify and guide. I will leave him with thee. May the saints bless his ministry!" So saying, the abbess retired from the threshold, making way for a form in the garb of a monk, with the hood drawn over the face. The monk bowed his head meekly, advanced into the cell, closed the door, and seated himself on a stool, which, save the table and the pallet, seemed the sole furniture of the dismal chamber.

"Daughter," said he, after a pause, "it is a rugged and a mournful lot, this renunciation of earth and all its fair destinies and soft affections, to one not wholly prepared and armed for the sacrifice. Confide in me, my child; I am no dire inquisitor, seeking to distort thy words to thine own peril. I am no bitter and morose ascetic. Beneath these robes still beats a human heart, that can sympathize with human sorrows. Confide in me without fear. Dost thou not dread the fate they would force upon thee ? Dost thou not shrink back? Wouldst thou not be free?"

"No," said the poor novice ; but the denial came faint and irresolute from her lips.

"Pause," said the friar, growuig more earnest in his tone: "pause—there is yet time."

"Nay," said the novice, looking up with some surprise in her countenance; "nay, even were I so weak, escape now is impossible. What hand could unbar the gates of the convent?"

"Mine!" cried the monk, with impetuosity. "Yes, I have that power. In all Spain, but one man can save thee, and I am he."

"You!" faltered the novice, gazing at her strange visitor with mingled astonishment and alarm. "And who are you that could resist the fiat of that Tomas de Torquemada, before whom, they tell me, even the crowned heads of Castile and Arragon vail low?"

The monk half rose, with an impatient and almost haughty start,