"Give you my ring!" she said in terror.

"Why not?" asked Montefiore, uneasy at such artlessness.

"But our holy father the Pope has blessed it; it was put upon my
finger in childhood by a beautiful lady who took care of me, and who
told me never to part with it."

"Juana, you cannot love me!"

"Ah!" she said, "here it is; take it. You, are you not another
myself?"

She held out the ring with a trembling hand, holding it tightly as she
looked at Montefiore with a clear and penetrating eye that questioned
him. That ring! all of herself was in it; but she gave it to him.

"Oh, my Juana!" said Montefiore, again pressing her in his arms. "I
should be a monster indeed if I deceived you. I will love you
forever."

Juana was thoughtful. Montefiore, reflecting that in this first
interview he ought to venture upon nothing that might frighten a
young girl so ignorantly pure, so imprudent by virtue rather than
from desire, postponed all further action to the future, relying
on his beauty, of which he knew the power, and on this innocent
ring-marriage, the hymen of the heart, the lightest, yet the strongest
of all ceremonies. For the rest of that night, and throughout the
next day, Juana's imagination was the accomplice of her passion.