through my very marrow (though I stood
three hundred yards away, as if it had been uttered close at my ear), I
trust I shall never hear again.

Then followed the contrast of a great stillness; for, as the last
accents died away on her lips, Isabel sank down, without a struggle,
into a dead swoon.

A sad satisfaction came into Guy's face. "It is best so," he muttered;
"I hope she won't wake for an hour," and he carried her into the house.
They were trying to revive her, unsuccessfully, when I reached it with
those who bore the corpse on a litter of pine branches. By Guy's
directions, it was laid on his own bed; and there the Italian women
rendered the last offices to the dead man, weeping and wailing over him
as though he had been a brother or dear friend--only for his rare
beauty--even as the Moorish girls mourned over that fair-faced Christian
knight whom they found lying, rolled in blood, by the rock of Alpujarro.

Soon they came to tell Guy that Isabel was recovering from her swoon.
She was hardly conscious when he entered the room, and he heard her
moaning, "I am so cold, so cold," shivering all over, though she was
warmly wrapped in cloaks and shawls.

The village doctor, a mild, helpless-looking man, was sitting by her
bedside. He tried to feel her pulse just then, I suppose to show that he
could be of some use; but she shrunk away from him, and beckoned to her
cousin to come near. He motioned to the others to leave them alone, and,
kneeling down by her, took her hand in his.

"Guy, dear," she said, "I know I have been so very wicked and ungrateful
to you; but you must not be angry. I have no one left to take care of me
but you, now. I will try to be patient; indeed, indeed I will." Her
voice was faint and exhausted, but as gentle as ever.

He held her hand faster, and bent his forehead down upon it.

"You are not wicked--only too weak to bear your sorrow. If I only knew
what to do to comfort you! But I am so rough and harsh, even when I mean
to be kind. I can say nothing, either. I suppose you ought to submit,
but I can not tell you how; it is a lesson I have never been able to
learn."

"You can do this," she said. "Let me go to him. Ah! don't refuse. I will
be calm and good. Indeed I will. But I must go"--she sank her voice into
a lower whisper yet--"I have not kissed him to-night."

There was something so unspeakably piteous in her tone and in her
imploring eyes, that had grown quite soft again, thou