reached it, Don Ferdinand crossed the deserted hall.

"Marie, dearest, here and alone? Pale, too, and trembling! In heaven's
name, what hath chanced?"

A moment more, and she would have flung herself at his feet and told
him all--all, and beseeching his forgiveness, conjure him to shield
her from Arthur, from herself; but as she looked up in his face,
and met its beaming animation, its manly reflection of the pure
gratification that evening had bestowed, how could she, how dared she
be the one to dash it with woe? And, overpowered with this fearful
contention of feeling, she threw her arms around him as he bent
tenderly over her, and burying her head in his bosom, burst into
tears.

"Thou art exhausted, mine own love! It has been too exciting, too
wearying a scene for thee. Why, what a poor, weak girl thou art! How
fortunate for thee that thy Queen demands not thy constant attendance,
and that thy husband is not ambitious to behold thee shining in the
court, as thy grace and beauty might! I am too glad to feel thee all,
all my own. Smile on me, love, and then to thy couch. A few hours'
quiet rest, and thou wilt be thyself again." And he bore her himself
with caressing gentleness to her apartment.

CHAPTER XI.

"Then Roderick from the Douglas broke,
As flashes flame through sable smoke,
Kindling its wreaths long, dark, and low.
To one broad blaze of ruddy glow;
So the deep anguish of despair
Burst in fierce jealousy to air."

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

"Sure, now, Pedro, the poor young Senor cannot be entirely in his
right mind; he does nothing but tramp, tramp, tramp, the whole night
long, and mutters so fiercely to himself, and such dark words, it
would make one tremble were they not belied by His sweet face and sad
smile," was the observation of old Juana Lopez to her husband some ten
days after Arthur Stanley had been domiciled in their dwelling. The
old man muttered something about his being a foreigner from the Wild
Island, where they had all been busy cutting one another's throats,
and what could she expect otherwise?"

"Expect? why that he must have become Spanish born and bred since he
has been in King Ferdinand's service so long, and was such a boy when
he left England."

"Stuff, woman; there's no taking the foreign blood out of him, try as
you will," growled the old man, who in common with many of his class,
was exceedingly annoyed that a foreigner should possess so much of
the Kin