Farewell!"




CHAPTER VIII.

THE ESCAPE

It was midnight in the chapel of the convent.

The moonlight shone with exceeding lustre through the tall casements, and
lit into a ghastly semblance of life the marble images of saint and
martyr, that threw their long shadows over the consecrated floor.
Nothing could well be conceived more dreary, solemn, and sepulchral than
that holy place: its distained and time-hallowed walls; the impenetrable
mass of darkness that gathered into those recesses which the moonlight
failed to reach; its antique and massive tombs, above which reclined the
sculptured effigies of some departed patroness or abbess, who had
exchanged a living grave for the Mansions of the Blest. But there--oh,
wonderful human heart!--even there, in that spot, the very homily and
warning against earthly affections and mortal hopes--even there, couldst
thou beat with as wild, as bright, and as pure a passion as ever heaved
the breast and shone in the eyes of Beauty, in the free air that ripples
the Guadiana, or amidst the twilight dance of Castilian maids.

A tall figure, wrapped from head to foot in a cloak, passed slowly up the
aisle. But light and cautious though the footstep, it woke a low,
hollow, ominous echo, that seemed more than the step itself to disturb
the sanctity of the place. It paused opposite to a confessional, which