the slightest sound; I can hear old Perez snoring even here. Come,
indeed! She can have nothing more to lose."

Bitter reflection! rakes alone are logical and will punish a woman for
devotion. Man created Satan and Lovelace; but a virgin is an angel on
whom he can bestow naught but his own vices. She is so grand, so
beautiful, that he cannot magnify or embellish her; he has only the
fatal power to blast her and drag her down into his own mire.

Montefiore waited for a later and more somnolent hour of the night;
then, in spite of his reflections, he descended the stairs without
boots, armed with his pistols, moving step by step, stopping to
question the silence, putting forth his hands, measuring the stairs,
peering into the darkness, and ready at the slightest incident to fly
back into his room. The Italian had put on his handsomest uniform; he
had perfumed his black hair, and now shone with the particular
brilliancy which dress and toilet bestow upon natural beauty. Under
such circumstances most men are as feminine as a woman.

The marquis arrived without hindrance before the secret door of the
room in which the girl was hidden, a sort of cell made in the angle of
the house and belonging exclusively to Juana, who had remained there
hidden during the day from every eye while the siege lasted. Up to the
present time she had slept in the room of her adopted mother, but the
limited space in the garret where the merchant and his wife had gone
to make room for the officer who was billeted upon them, did not allow
of her going with them. Dona Lagounia had therefore left the young
girl to the guardianship of lock and key, under the protection of
religious ideas, all the more efficacious because they were partly
superstitious, and also under the shield of a native pride and