in the forty-first. The old question of climates is still
useful to narrators to explain the sudden denouements, the imprudences,
or the resistances of love.

Montefiore kept his eyes fixed on the exquisite black profile projected
by the gleam upon the wall. Neither he nor Juana could see each other;
a troublesome cornice, vexatiously placed, deprived them of the mute
correspondence which may be established between a pair of lovers as they
bend to each other from their windows. Thus the mind and the attention
of the captain were concentrated on that luminous circle where, without
perhaps knowing it herself, the young girl would, he thought, innocently
reveal her thoughts by a series of gestures. But no! The singular
motions she proceeded to make gave not a particle of hope to the
expectant lover. Juana was amusing herself by cutting up his missive.
But virtue and innocence sometimes imitate the clever proceedings
inspired by jealousy to the Bartholos of comedy. Juana, without
pens, ink, or paper, was replying by snip of scissors. Presently she
refastened the note to the string; the officer drew it up, opened it,
and read by the light of his lamp one word, carefully cut out of the
paper: COME.

"Come!" he said to himself; "but what of poison? or the dagger or
carbine of Perez? And that apprentice not yet asleep, perhaps, in the
shop? and the servant in her hammock? Besides, this old house echoes the
slightest sound; I can hear old Perez snoring even here. Come, indeed!
She can have nothing more to lose."

Bitter reflection! rakes alone are logical and will punish a woman for
devotion. Man created Satan and Lovelace; but a virgin is an angel
on whom he can bestow naught but his own vices. She is so grand, so
beautiful, that he cannot magnify or embellish her; he has only the
fatal power to blast her and drag her down into his own mire.

Montefiore waited for a later and more somnolent hour of the night;
then, in spite of his reflections, he descended the stairs without
boots, armed with his pistols, moving step by step, stopping to question
the silence, putting forth his hands, measuring the stairs, peering into
the darkness, and ready at the slightest incident to fly back into his
room. The Italian had put on his handsomest uniform; he had perfumed his
black hair, and now shone with the particular brilliancy which dress and
toilet bestow upon natural beauty. Under such circumstances most men are
as feminine as a woma