Ferdinand speedily narrated the affairs of the morning, and concluded by inquiring if any thing had occurred in her interview with Marie to excite suspicion of her mad design.  The Queen replied by relating, in her turn, all that had passed between them.  The idea of madness could no longer exist; there was not the faintest hope that in a moment of frenzy she had spoken falsely.

“And yet, was it not madness,” the King urged, “thus publicly to avow a determined heresy, and expose herself to all the horrors of the church’s vengeance!  ‘Years of deception and fraud!’ she told thee, ‘would be disclosed.’  By St. Francis! fraud enough.  Who could have suspected the wife of Don Ferdinand Morales a Jewess?  It was on this account he kept her so retired.  How could he reconcile his conscience to a union with one of a race so abhorred, beautiful as she is?  And where could he have found her?  But this matters not:  it is all wild conjecture, save the madness of the avowal.  What cause could there have been for such self-sacrifice?”

“There was a cause,” replied the Queen earnestly; “cause enough to render life to her of little moment.  Do not ask me my meaning, dearest Ferdinand; I would not do her such wrong as to breathe the suspicion that, spite of myself, spite of incomprehensible mystery, will come, even to thee.  Do not let us regret her secret is discovered.  Let her but recover from the agony of these repeated trials, and with the help of our holy fathers, we may yet turn her from her abhorred faith, and so render her happy in this world, and secure her salvation in the next.”

“The help of the holy fathers!” repeated the King.  “Nay, Isabel, their sole help will be to torture and burn!  They will accuse her of insulting, by years of deceit, the holy faith, of which she has appeared a member.  Nay, perchance of using foul magic on Morales (whom the saints preserve), and then thou knowest what will follow!”

The Queen shuddered.  “Never with my consent, my husband!  From the first moment I beheld this unfortunate, something attracted me towards her; her misery deepened the feeling; and even now, knowing what she is, affection lingers.  The Holy Virgin give me pardon, if ’tis sin!”

“For such sin I will give thee absolution, dearest,” replied the King, half jestingly, half earnestly.  “Do not look so grave.  No one knows, or values thy sterling piety half so tenderly and reverentially as I do.  But this is no common case.  Were Marie one of those base and grovelling wretches, those accursed unbelievers, who taint our fair realm with their abhorred rites—­think of nothing but gold and usury, and how best to cheat their fellows; hating us almost as intensely as we hate them—­why, she should abide by the fate she has drawn upon herself.  But the wife of my noble Morales, one who has associated so long with zealous Catholics, that she is already most probably one of us, and only avowed her descent from some mysterious cause—­by St. Francis, she shall be saved!”