the novice, though her features were turned from him, and half
veiled by the headdress she had assumed, strange feelings, ominous and
startling, like those remembrances of the Past which sometimes come in
the guise of prophecies of the Future, thronged, indistinct and dim,
upon his breast. The unconscious and exquisite grace of her form, its
touching youth, an air of innocence diffused around it, a something
helpless, and pleading to man's protection, in the very slightness
of her beautiful but fairy-like proportions, seemed to reproach his
treachery, and to awaken whatever of pity or human softness remained in
his heart.

The novice had read the letter; and turning, in the impulse of surprise
and alarm, to Calderon for explanation, for the first time she remarked
his features and his aspect; for he had then laid aside his cloak, and
the broad Spanish hat with its heavy plume. It was thus that their eyes
met, and, as they did so, Beatriz, starting from her seat, uttered a
wild cry--

"And thy name is Calderon--Don Roderigo Calderon?--is it possible?
Hadst thou never another name?" she exclaimed; and, as she spoke, she
approached him slowly and fearfully.

"Lady, Calderon is my name," replied the marquis: but his voice
faltered. "But thine--thine--is it, in truth, Beatriz Coello?"

Beatriz made no reply, but continued to advance, till her very breath
came upon his cheek; she then laid her hand upon his arm, and looked
up into his face with a gaze so earnest, so intent, so prolonged, that
Calderon, but for a strange and terrible thought--half of wonder, half
of suspicion, which had gradually crept into his soul, and now usurped
it--might have doubted whether the reason of the poor novice was not
unsettled.

Slowly Beatriz withdrew her eyes, and they fell upon a large mirror
opposite, which reflected in full light the features of Calderon and
herself. It was then--her natural bloom having faded into a paleness
scarcely less statue-like than that which characterised the cheek of
Calderon himself, and all the sweet play and mobility of feature that
belong to first youth being replaced by a rigid and marble stillness of
expression--it was then that a remarkable resemblance between these two
persons became visible and startling. That resemblance struck alike, and
in the same instant, both Beatriz and Calderon; and both, gazing on the
mirror, uttered an involuntary and simultaneous exclamation.

With a trembling and has