Here the sorrowing stranger relapsed into silence, broken only by sobs.  The other, who had been listening attentively, inferred from what he had heard that the speaker was a woman.  The curiosity he had before felt was now excited to the highest degree:  he was several times on the point of approaching the lady’s bed; and he would have done so at last, but just then he heard her open the door, call to the landlord, and bid him saddle the nag, for she wanted to go.  It was a pretty long time before she could make the landlord hear her; and finally, all the answer she could obtain was a recommendation to go to sleep again, for there was more than half the night yet to come, and it was so dark that it would be a very rash thing to venture upon the road.  Upon this she said no more, but shut the door, and went back to bed, sighing dismally.

The other stranger now thought it would be well to address her, and offer her his aid in any way that might be serviceable, as a means of inducing her to say who she was, and relate her piteous story.  “Assuredly, senor gentleman,” said he, “I should think myself destitute of natural feeling—­nay, that I had a heart of stone and a bosom of brass—­if your sighs and the words you have uttered did not move me to sympathy.  If the compassion I feel for you, and the earnest desire I have conceived to risk my life for your relief—­if your misfortunes admit of any—­may give me some claim upon your courtesy, I entreat you to manifest it in declaring to me the cause of your grief without reserve.”

“If that grief had not deprived me of understanding,” said the person addressed, “I ought to have remembered that I was not alone in this room, and have bridled my tongue and suppressed my sighs; but to punish myself for my imprudent forgetfulness, I will do what you ask; for it may be that the pangs it will cost me to relate the bitter story of my misfortunes will end at once my life and my woes.  But first you must promise me solemnly, that whatever I may reveal, you will not quit your bed nor come to mine, nor ask more of me than I choose to disclose; for if you do, the very moment I hear you move I will run myself through with my sword, which lies ready to my hand.”

The cavalier, who would have promised anything to obtain the information he so much desired, vowed that he would not depart a jot from the conditions so courteously imposed.  “On that assurance, then,” said the lady, “I will do what I have never done before, and relate to you the history of my life.  Hearken then.

“You must know, senor, that although I entered this inn, as they have doubtless told you, in the dress of a man, I am an unhappy maiden, or at least I was one not eight days ago, and ceased to be so, because I had the folly to believe the delusive words of a perjured man.  My name is Teodosia; my birth-place is one of the chief towns of the province of Andalusia, the name of which I suppress, because it does not import