z. Don Sebastian looked at it long. Why
should his brother write such words in the breviary of Dona Sodina? He
turned the pages and the handwriting of his wife met his eye and the
words were the same--'_To-night, my beloved, I come_'--as if they were
such delight to her that she must write them herself. The breviary
dropped from Don Sebastian's hand.

The taper, flickering in the draught, threw glaring lights on Don
Sebastian's face, but it showed no change in it. He sat looking at the
fallen breviary, and, in his mind, at the love which was dead. At last
he passed his hand over his forehead.

'And yet,' he whispered, 'I loved thee well!'

But as the day came he picked up the breviary and locked it in a casket;
he knelt again at the praying-stool and, lifting his hands to the
crucifix, prayed silently. Then he locked the door of Dona Sodina's
room, and it was a year before he entered it again.

That day the Archbishop Pablo came to his brother to offer consolation
for his loss, and Don Sebastian at the parting kissed him on either
cheek.

V

The people of Xiormonez said that Don Sebastian was heart-broken, for
from the date of his wife's interment he was not seen in the streets by
day. A few, returning home from some riot, had met him wandering in the
dead of the night, but he passed them silently by. But he sent his
servants to Toledo and Burgos, to Salamanca, Cordova, even to Paris and
Rome; and from all these places they brought him books--and day after
day he studied in them, till the common folk asked if he had turned
magician.

So passed eleven months, and nearly twelve, till it wanted but five days
to the anniversary of the death of Dona Sodina. Then Don Sebastian wrote
to his brother the letter which for months he had turned over in his
mind,--

'_Seeing the instability of all human things, and the uncertain
length of our exile upon earth, I have considered that it is evil
for brothers to remain so separate. Therefore I implore you--who
are my only relative in this world, and heir to all my goods and
estates--to visit me quickly, for I have a presentiment that death
is not far off, and I would see you before we are parted by the
immense sea._'

The archbishop was thinking that he must shortly pay a visit to his
cathedral city, and, as his brother had desired, came to Xiormonez
immediately. On the anniversary of Dona Sodina's interment, Don
Sebastian entertained A