An excellent constitution soon medicined his wounds; and there was a balsam in the looks and words of Inez, that had a healing effect on the still severer wounds which he carried in his heart.  She displayed the strongest interest in his safety; she called him her deliverer, her preserver.  It seemed as if her grateful disposition sought, in the warmth of its acknowledgments, to repay him for past coldness.  But what most contributed to Antonio’s recovery, was her explanation concerning his supposed rival.  It was some time since he had first beheld her at church, and he had ever since persecuted her with his attentions.  He had beset her in her walks, until she had been obliged to confine herself to the house, except when accompanied by her father.  He had besieged her with letters, serenades, and every art by which he could urge a vehement, but clandestine and dishonourable suit.  The scene in the garden was as much of a surprise to her as to Antonio.  Her persecutor had been attracted by her voice, and had found his way over a ruined part of the wall.  He had come upon her unawares; was detaining her by force, and pleading his insulting passion, when the appearance of the student interrupted him, and enabled her to make her escape.  She had forborne to mention to her father the persecution which she suffered; she wished to spare him unavailing anxiety and distress, and had determined to confine herself more rigorously to the house; though it appeared that even here she had not been safe from his daring enterprise.

Antonio inquired whether she knew the name of this impetuous admirer?  She replied that he had made his advances under a fictitious name; but that she had heard him once called by the name of Don Ambrosio de Loxa.

Antonio knew him, by report, for one of the most determined and dangerous libertines in all Granada.  Artful, accomplished, and, if he chose to be so, insinuating; but daring and headlong in the pursuit of his pleasures; violent and implacable in his resentments.  He rejoiced to find that Inez had been proof against his seductions, and had been inspired with aversion by his splendid profligacy; but he trembled to think of the dangers she had run, and he felt solicitude about the dangers that must yet environ her.

At present, however, it was probable the enemy had a temporary quietus.  The traces of blood had been found for some distance from the ladder, until they were lost among thickets; and as nothing had been heard or seen of him since, it was concluded that he had been seriously wounded.

As the student recovered from his wounds, he was enabled to join Inez and her father in their domestic intercourse.  The chamber in which they usually met had probably been a saloon of state in former times.  The floor was of marble; the walls partially covered with remains of tapestry; the chairs, richly carved and gilt, were crazed with age, and covered with tarnished and tattered brocade.  Against the wall hung a long rusty rapier,