lla had penetrated her secret feelings, with
regard to Arthur Stanley; and yet not a syllable of this had ever
passed the Queen's lips. Oh, true sympathy seldom needs expression,
for its full consolation to be given and received! The heart
recognizes intuitively a kindred heart, and turns to it in its sorrow
or its joy, conscious of finding in it, repose from itself. But only
a woman can give to woman this perfect sympathy; for the deepest
recesses, the hidden sources of anguish in the female heart no man can
read.

Engrossed as Isabella was by the mysterious information imparted by
Marie, indefinitely yet forcibly confirmed by her, then unusual,
knowledge of the past history of Spain, she was more easily satisfied
with Marie's hurried and hesitating account of her escape, than she
might otherwise have been. To proclaim her relationship with Father
Ambrose was ruin to him at once. He had been one, she said with truth,
who had received great obligations from her family, and had vowed
to return them whenever it should be in his power so to do; he had,
therefore, made the exertion to save her, and was about taking her to
her childhood's home on the frontiers of Castile, the only place, it
appeared to him, sufficiently secret to conceal her from Don Luis's
thousand spies; but that on the providential discovery of the real
murderer, and the seeming impossibility of ever seeing the King
himself in time--she paused.

"Could he send thee on such a rapid errand, my child, and suffering
thus?" gently inquired Isabella.

"No, gracious madam," was the unhesitating rejoinder, though a burning
blush mounted to her very temples; "it was my own voluntary choice. It
was my unhappy fate to have been the actual cause of his arraignment;
it was but my duty to save him if I could."

"And thou wouldst have returned with Perez had we not penetrated thy
disguise?"

"Yes, gracious Sovereign." And the flush faded into paleness, ashy as
before; but the tone was calm and firm.

The Queen looked at her intently, but made no further observation; and
speedily summoning her before trusted attendants, placed the widow of
Morales once more in their charge; imparted to them as much of Marie's
tale as she deemed requisite, and the consequent necessity for her
return to the Queen's care; nay, her very existence was to be kept
secret from all save those to whom she herself should choose to impart
it. Gratified by her confidence, they were eager to o