Royal protection of a Jewess was so unprecedented,
that it could only argue the hope—nay, perhaps
conviction—of her final conversion.
And the old man actually tried to divorce the sweet
image of his niece from his affections, so convinced
was he that her unhappy love for Arthur, combined with
Isabella’s authority, and, no doubt, the threat
of some terrible alternative should she refuse, would
compel her acceptance of the proffered cross, and
so sever them for ever. How little can man, even
the most gentle and affectionate, read woman!
It was the day completing the eleventh month after
Don Ferdinand’s murder, when Julien Morales
repaired earlier than usual to the little temple,
there to read the service for the dead appointed for
the day, and thence proceeded to his nephew’s
grave. An unusual object, which had fallen on,
or was kneeling beside the grave, caught his eye, and
impelled him to quicken his pace. His heart throbbed
as he recognized the garb of a novice, and to such
a degree as almost to deprive him of all power, as
in the white, chiselled features, resting on the cold,
damp sod, he recognized his niece, and believed, for
the first agonizing moment, that it was but clay resting
against clay; and that the sweet, pure spirit had
but guided her to that grave and flown. But death
for a brief interval withdrew his grasp; though his
shaft had reached her, and no human hand could draw
it back. Father Denis had conducted her so carefully
and tenderly to the frontiers of Castile, that she
had scarcely felt fatigue, and encountered no exposure
to the elements; but when he left her, her desire
to reach her home became stronger, with the seeming
physical incapacity to do so. Her spirit gave
way, and mental and bodily exhaustion followed.
The season was unusually damp and tempestuous, and,
though scarcely felt at the time, sowed the seeds
of cold and decline, from which her naturally good
constitution might, in the very midst of her trials,
otherwise have saved her. Her repugnance to encounter
the eyes or speech of her fellows, lest her disguise
should be penetrated, caused her to shrink from entering
any habitation, except for the single night which
intervened, between the period of the father’s
leaving her and her reaching the secret entrance to
the Vale. Her wallet provided her with more food
than her parched throat could swallow; and for the
consuming thirst, the fresh streams that so often
bubbled across her path, gave her all she needed.
The fellowship of man, then, was unrequited, and,
as the second night fell, so comparatively short a
distance lay between her and her home, that buoyed
up by the desire to reach it, she was not sensible
of her utter exhaustion, till she stood within the
little graveyard of the Vale; and the moon shining
softly and clearly on the headstones, disclosed to
her the grave of her husband. She was totally
ignorant that he had been borne there; and the rush
of feeling which came over her, as she read his name—the
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