The proper steps were taken for sending the body of the countess home to Madrid, where it would receive the highest honors, and those marks of distinction which its connection with the royal blood of Spain demanded.  Lorenzo Bezan mourned sincerely the loss of one who had been so dear and kind a friend to him.  An instinctive feeling seemed to separate Isabella and the lieutenant-governor for a brief period.  It was not a period of anxiety, nor of doubt, concerning each other.  Strange to say, not one word had yet been exchanged between them since that bitter farewell was uttered in the prison walls of the military keep.  No words could have made them understand each other better than they now did; each respected the peculiar feelings of the other.  But weeks soon pass, and the time was very brief that transpired before they met in the drawing-room of Don Gonzales’s house.  Ruez welcomed Lorenzo Bezan as he entered, led him to the apartment, and calling his sister, declared that they must excuse him, for he was going with his father for a drive in the Paseo.

Lorenzo Bezan sat for some moments alone, when he heard a light footstep upon the marble floor of the main hall, and his heart throbbed with redoubled quickness.  In a moment more Isabella Gonzales stood before him; her eyes bent upon the floor, seemed immovably there; she could not raise them; but she held forth her hand towards him!  He seized it, pressed it to his lips again and again, then drawing her closely to his bosom, pressed his lips to her forehead, and asked: 

“Isabella, Isabella, do you, can you really love me?”

“Love you, Lorenzo Bezan?”

“Yes, dear one, love me as I have for years loved you.”

She raised her eyes now; they were streaming with tears; but through them all she said: 

“I have looked into my heart, and I find that I have ever loved you!”

“Sweet words!  O, happy assurance,” said the soldier, rapturously.

“One word will explain all to thee.  I was spoiled when in childhood.  I was told that I was beautiful, and as I grew older a spirit of haughtiness and pride was implanted in my bosom by the universal homage that was offered to me on all hands.  I had no wish ungratified, was unchecked, humored, in short spoiled thy affectionate indulgence, and but for one good influence-that exercised by the lovely character of my dear brother, Ruez-I fear me, I should have been undeniably lost to the world and myself in some strange denouement of my life.  A startling and fearful event introduced you to me under circumstances calculated to fix your form and features forever in my memory.  It did so.  I could not but be sensible of your noble and manly qualities, though seen through what was to my mind a dark haze of humble associations.