She held out the ring with a trembling hand, holding it tightly as she looked at Montefiore with a clear and penetrating eye that questioned him.  That ring! all of herself was in it; but she gave it to him.

“Oh, my Juana!” said Montefiore, again pressing her in his arms.  “I should be a monster indeed if I deceived you.  I will love you forever.”

Juana was thoughtful.  Montefiore, reflecting that in this first interview he ought to venture upon nothing that might frighten a young girl so ignorantly pure, so imprudent by virtue rather than from desire, postponed all further action to the future, relying on his beauty, of which he knew the power, and on this innocent ring-marriage, the hymen of the heart, the lightest, yet the strongest of all ceremonies.  For the rest of that night, and throughout the next day, Juana’s imagination was the accomplice of her passion.

On this first evening Montefiore forced himself to be as respectful as he was tender.  With that intention, in the interests of his passion and the desires with which Juana inspired him, he was caressing and unctuous in language; he launched the young creature into plans for a new existence, described to her the world under glowing colors, talked to her of household details always attractive to the mind of girls, giving her a sense of the rights and realities of love.  Then, having agreed upon the hour for their future nocturnal interviews, he left her happy, but changed; the pure and pious Juana existed no longer; in the last glance she gave him, in the pretty movement by which she brought her forehead to his lips, there was already more of passion than a girl should feel.  Solitude, weariness of employments contrary to her nature had brought this about.  To make the daughter of the Maranas truly virtuous, she ought to have been habituated, little by little, to the world, or else to have been wholly withdrawn from it.

“The day, to-morrow, will seem very long to me,” she said, receiving his kisses on her forehead.  “But stay in the salon, and speak loud, that I may hear your voice; it fills my soul.”

Montefiore, clever enough to imagine the girl’s life, was all the more satisfied with himself for restraining his desires because he saw that it would lead to his greater contentment.  He returned to his room without accident.

Ten days went by without any event occurring to trouble the peace and solitude of the house.  Montefiore employed his Italian cajolery on old Perez, on Dona Lagounia, on the apprentice, even on the cook, and they all liked him; but, in spite of the confidence he now inspired in them, he never asked to see Juana, or to have the door of her mysterious hiding-place opened to him.  The young girl, hungry to see her lover, implored him to do so; but he always refused her from an instinct of prudence.  Besides, he had used his best powers and fascinations to lull the suspicions of the old couple, and had now accustomed