at?' He looked at me in perplexity, and I felt
myself grow pale under his inquiring glance; my limbs refused to
support me, and I sank fainting on the floor.

"The funeral was over; I had suffered with another attack of fever, and
was restored to my usual health, when one day a hasty messenger
summoned me to go at once to Don Manuel, who needed my presence. He
had been thrown from his horse, and was suffering intensely from
internal injuries, which threatened to terminate fatally at any moment.
I was conducted to his bedside, at which Inez knelt, her face buried on
her father's pillow. At the foot of the bed stood the physician,
Brother Jonathan.

"Don Manuel motioned me to his side. 'Don Mauer,' he said in a faint
voice, 'I must die; but, before I leave this world, I would like to
provide for the future of my child, who, as you know, has no mother.
You have saved her life in the storm, and she has confessed to me that
she loves you, and hopes you return her affection. Therefore I ask you
now, while death is hastening on, can you love her? And will you take
her to your heart, to love and cherish her as your wife? She has
always been a good daughter to me; she will be a true and faithful wife
to you.'

"Inez raised her lovely head, and her dark eyes, which, in their
innocence did not know how to veil her sentiments, looked pleadingly at
me. I laid one hand on the graceful, girlish head, and the other in
that of the dying man.

"'I will vow to honor and cherish her as my most precious treasure,' I
said solemnly, 'for I love her above everything on earth.'

"Inez sank into my arms, and the weak voice of her dying father
pronounced a blessing on us. He begged that a priest might be quickly
brought, to unite us by his death-bed, so that he would know Inez was
safely provided for.

"Scarcely was the ceremony over, when he drew his last breath.

"The surprise, the overwhelming emotion, caused by this event,
impressed me so powerfully that I could think of nothing but the one
fact--'Inez is mine!' When I left the house, after handing the weeping
girl over into the hands of her faithful nurse. Brother Jonathan rode
along with me.

"'Brother Michael,' he said, glaring at me darkly and menacingly, 'I
now know what sinful love prompted you to give Julie, your wife, a
double dose of opium; and why, when I came to see her early in the
morning, the corpse had already been cold for some hours.'

"As I felt myself