been perforce clandestine, because the disapproval of the holy
fathers was matched in thoroughness by that of Diego de Susan. It
had been vexatious enough on that account not to be able to boast
himself the favoured of the beautiful and opulent Isabella de
Susan; it was exasperating to discover now a new and more
imperative reason for this odious secrecy.

Never sped a lover to his mistress in a frame of mind more
aggrieved than that which afflicted Don Rodrigo as, tight-wrapped
in his black cloak, he gained the Calle de Ataud on that January
night.

Anon, however, when by way of a garden gate and an easily
escaladed balcony he found himself in the presence of Isabella,
the delight of her effaced all other considerations. Her father
was from home, as she had told him in the note that summoned him;
he was away at Palacios on some merchant's errand, and would not
return until the morrow. The servants were all abed, and so Don
Rodrigo might put off his cloak and hat, and lounge at his ease
upon the low Moorish divan, what time she waited upon him with a
Saracen goblet filled with sweet wine of Malaga. The room in
which she received him was one set apart for her own use, her
bower, a long, low ceilinged chamber, furnished with luxury and
taste. The walls were hung with tapestries, the floor spread with
costly Eastern rugs; on an inlaid Moorish table a tall, three-
beaked lamp of beaten copper charged with aromatic oil shed light
and perfume through the apartment.

Don Rodrigo sipped his wine, and his dark, hungry eyes followed
her as she moved about him with vaguely voluptuous, almost feline