The hand of time, as if in veneration, has not touched the church itself, and even the fanaticism of the people has spared the sanctuary of their ancestors.  It stood entire amid the ruined cells and falling wall.  The dome, with its high pointed roof of stone, was already darkened by the breath of ages:  ivy covered with its tendrils the narrow windows, and trees were growing in the crevices of the stones.  Within, soft moss spread its verdant carpet, and in the sultriness a moist freshness breathed there, nourished by a fountain, which, having pierced the wall, fell tinkling behind the stone altar, and, dividing into silver ever-murmuring threads of pure water, filtered among the pavement stones, and crept meandering away.  A solitary ray slanting through the window, flitted over the trembling verdure, and smiled on the gloomy wall, like a child on its grandame’s knee.  Thither Seltanetta directed her steps:  there she rested from the looks which so tormented her:  all around was so still, so soft, so happy; and all augmented but the more her sadness:  the light trembling on the wall, the twittering of the swallows, the murmur of the fountain, melted into tears the load that weighed upon her breast, and her sorrow dissolved into lamentation:  Sekina went to pluck the pears which grew in abundance round the church; and Seltanetta could freely yield to nature.

But sudden, raising her head, she uttered an exclamation of surprise! before her stood a well-made Avaretz, stained with blood and mire.  “Does not your heart, do not your eyes, O Seltanetta, recognize your favourite?” No, but with a second glance she knew Ammalat; and forgetting all but her joy, she threw herself on his neck, embraced it with her arms, and long, long, gazed fixedly on the much-loved face; and the fire of confidence, the fire of ecstasy, glimmered through the still falling tears.  Could then the impassioned Ammalat contain his rapture?  He clung like a bee to the rosy lips of Seltanetta; he had heard enough for his happiness; he was now at the summit of bliss; the lovers had not yet said a word of their love, but they already understood each other.  “And dost thou then, angel,” added Ammalat, when Seltanetta, ashamed of the kiss, withdrew from his embrace:  “dost thou love me?”

“Allah protect me!” replied the innocent girl, lowering her eyelashes, but not her eyes:  “Love! that is a terrible word.  Last year, going into the street, I saw them pelting a girl with stones:  terrified I rushed hone, but nowhere could I hide myself:  the bloody image of the sinner was everywhere before me, and her groan yet rings unceasingly in my ears.  When I asked why they had so inhumanly put to death that unhappy creature, they answered, that she loved a certain youth!”

“No, dearest, it was not because she loved one, but that she loved not one alone—­because she betrayed some one, it may be, that they killed her.”

“What means ‘betrayed,’ Ammalat?  I understand it not.”