no longer publicly spoken of; the excitement occasioned
alike by her avowal and disappearance was fast fading from the
imagination of the populace. The public jousts and festivals, intended
to celebrate the visit of the sovereigns, but which Morales's death
and the events ensuing had so painfully suspended, were recommencing,
and men flocked to them, as glad to escape from the mourning and
mystery which had held sway so long.

And now only three days intervened ere the expiration of the given
month; and each day did the Sub-Prior of St. Francis pass with the
prisoner, exhorting, comforting, and strengthening him for the dread
passage through which it was now too evident his soul must pass to
eternity. It was with difficulty and pain, that Stanley could even
then so cease to think of Marie, as to prepare himself with fitting
sobriety and humility for the fate impending; but the warm sympathy of
Father Francis, whose fine feelings had never been blunted by a life
of rigid seclusion, won him to listen and to join in his prayers, and,
gradually weaning his thoughts from their earthly resting, raised them
to that heaven which, if he truly repented of sin, the good father
assured him, was fast opening for him. Under the inviolable seal of
confession, Arthur acknowledged his deep and long-cherished love
for Marie, his dislike to her husband, which naturally followed the
discovery of her marriage, and the evil passions thence arising; but
he never wavered in the reiteration of his innocence; adding, that he
reproached no man with his death. The sentence was just according to
the appearances against him. Had he himself been amongst his judges,
his own sentence would have been the same. Yet still he was innocent;
and Father Francis so believed him that, after pronouncing absolution
and blessing, he hastened from the prisoner to the King to implore a
yet longer reprieve. But Ferdinand, though more moved by the Prior's
recital than he chose to display, remained firm; he had pledged his
kingly word to the chief of the Santa Hermandad that the award of
justice should not be waived without proof of innocence, and he could
not draw back. One chance only he granted, urged to do so by an
irresistible impulse, which how often comes we know not wherefore,
till the event marks it as the whisper of some guardian angel, who has
looked into the futurity concealed from us. The hour of the execution
had been originally fixed for the sixth hour o