showed the leech what she
thought of the betrayer in purple and the demand which he made upon her.
De Soto's attempt at persuasion had only increased her defiance. Instead
of reflecting and thinking of her own welfare and of the future of the
beloved being whose coming she dreaded, yet who seemed to her the most
precious gift of Heaven, she strengthened herself more and more in the
belief that it was due to her own dignity to resist the Emperor's cruel
encroachments upon her liberty. She knew that she owed Dr. Mathys a debt
of gratitude, but she thought herself freed from that duty since he had
made himself the blind tool of his master.

Now the Spaniard, who had never been her friend, also came to urge
the Emperor's will upon her. Toward him she need not force herself to
maintain the reserve which she had exercised in her conversation with
the confessor.

On the contrary!

He should hear, with the utmost plainness, what she thought of the
Emperor's instructions. If he, his confidant, then showed him that there
was one person at least who did not bow before his pitiless power, and
that hatred steeled her courage to defy him, one of the most ardent
wishes of her indignant, deeply wounded heart would be fulfilled. The
only thing which she still feared was that her aching throat might
prevent her from freely pouring forth what so passionately agitated her
soul.

She now confronted the inflexible nobleman, not a feature in whose
clear-cut, nobly moulded, soldierly face revealed what moved him.

When, in a businesslike tone, he announced his sovereign's will,
she interrupted him with the remark that she knew all this, and had
determined to oppose her own resolve to his Majesty's wishes.

Don Luis calmly allowed her to finish, and then asked: "So you refuse to
take the veil? Yet I think, under existing circumstances, nothing could
become you better."

"Life in a convent," she answered firmly, "is distasteful to me, and
I will never submit to it. Besides, you were hardly commissioned to
discuss what does or does not become me."

"By no means," replied the Spaniard calmly; "yet you can attribute the
remark to my wish to serve you. During the remainder of our conference I
will silence it, and can therefore be brief."

"So much the better," was the curt response. "Well, then, so you insist
that you will neither keep the secret which you have the honour of
sharing with his Majesty, nor----"

"Stay!" she eagerly interr