hand--he groaned aloud. Then gazing on the prostrate form of the novice,
he said--"Poor wretch! can I believe that thou art indeed of mine own
race and blood; or rather, does not nature, that stamped these lineaments
on thy countenance, deceive and mock me? If she, thy mother, lied, why
not nature herself?"

He raised the novice in his arms, and gazed long and wistfully upon her
lifeless, but almost lovely features. She moved not--she scarcely seemed
to breathe; yet he fancied he felt her embrace tightening round him--he
fancied he heard again the voice that had hailed him "FATHER!" His heart
beat aloud, the divine instinct overpowered all things, he pressed a
passionate kiss upon her forehead, and his tears fell fast and warm upon
her cheek. But again the dark remembrance crossed him, and he shuddered,
placed the novice hastily on one of the couches, and shouted aloud.

The Jew appeared and was ordered to summon Jacinta. A young woman of the
same persuasion, and of harsh and forbidding exterior, entered, and to
her care Calderon briefly consigned the yet insensible Beatriz.

While Jacinta unlaced the dress, and chafed the temples, of the novice,
Calderon seemed buried in gloomy thought. At last he strode slowly away,
as if to quit the chamber, when his foot struck against the case of the
picture, and his eye rested upon a paper which lay therein, folded and
embedded. He took it up, and, lifting aside the hangings, hurried into a
small cabinet lighted by a single lamp. Here, alone and unseen, Calderon
read the following letter:


"TO RODERIGO NUNEZ.