h this missive in her hand Inez returned to the archway. If Alcala were coming at all before going to the circus, by this time he would surely have come. The poor girl glanced up and down the street; there was not a single person to be seen, save a muleteer who chanced to be passing, and who turned in some surprise to see a señora standing alone at the entrance of a mansion. Teresa and Chico both being absent, Inez had no messenger to send with her letter, unless she employed the stranger whom chance had brought into her way. The lady beckoned to the muleteer to approach her, drew off her rosary—the only ornament which she wore—for money she had none, and gave the coral beads, with the letter, into the hand of the man.

"For the love of mercy," she cried, "hasten with this letter to Don Alcala de Aguilera, at the[Pg 59] Posada de Quesada. Oh, delay not; go as for your life!"

"I know the illustrious caballero, señora," said the muleteer, with an air of respectful pity. "The lady shall have no cause to complain of my slackness; ere an hour be passed I will bring a reply."

Was it a satisfaction or a terror to Inez when that letter was despatched? Perhaps it was both. Various feelings struggled in her breast, and it would have been difficult, even to herself, to have decided which was uppermost there. Inez, though pious, according to her superstitious views of religion, had no inclination whatever for the prison life of a convent. It was only her intense, unselfish love for her brother which induced her to threaten him and herself with a separation which would be, she felt, to her a living death. Inez had, from infancy, clung with the fondest affection to Alcala, her only brother. He had been to her companion, tutor, friend; and since the death of their last surviving parent, had almost taken towards the orphan girl the place of