nty-four hours he was dead as though Heaven wished
to punish me. It is true I have my grandson remaining, but this
Juanito in no way resembles his father, and I confess it to you, I
do not care much for him. I can only see in him the most distant
reflection of my poor son. Of my past, of that time which was the
happiest of my life, all I have left me is Visitacion. She is the
living image of the poor dead one. I worship her! and this feeble ray
of happiness these wretched people disturb with their calumnies. It is
enough to make one kill them!"

Overcome by the happy recollection of the spring-time which had
flowered during the first years of his episcopate, far away in an
Andalusian diocese, he repeated once again to Tomasa the tale of his
relations with a certain devout lady, who from her childhood had felt
a horror of the world. Devotion had drawn them together, but life
was not long in asserting her rights, opening herself a way by their
almost mystical relations, and finally uniting them in a carnal
embrace. They had lived faithful to each other in the secrecy of
ecclesiastical life, loving each other with scrupulous prudence, so
that no rumour of their relations had ever publicly transpired,
until she died, leaving two children. Don Sebastian, a man of strong
passions, was almost vehement in his paternal feelings--those two
beings were the image of the poor dead woman, the remembrance of the
only idyll which had softened a life wholly given over to ambition,
and the calumnies circulated by his enemies, founded on the presence
of his daughter in the archiepiscopal palace nearly drove him mad.

"They believe her to be my mistress!" he said angrily. "My poor
Visitacion, so good, so affectionate, so gentle to all, changed to a
courtesan by these wretches! A sweetheart that I have taken for my
amusement from the college of Noble Ladies! As if I, old and infirm,
were able to think of such things! Brutes! wretches! Crimes have been
committed for less!"

"Let them say on. God is in heaven and sees us all."

"I know it, but this is not enough to quiet me. You have children,
Tomasa, and you know what it is to love them. It is not only what
is done against them that wounds us, but what is said. What days of
suffering I endure! You know since my boyhood all my dreams have been
to rise to where I am. I used to look at the throne in the choir and
think how comfortable I should be in it--of the immense happiness of
being a