but to attempt to pronounce judgment on the sentiments of the past by reasoning of the present, when the mind is always advancing, is one of the weakest and idlest fallacies that ever entered the human breast. Digression as this is, it is necessary clearly to comprehend the situation in which Marie's avowal of her religion. had placed her, and her reason for so carefully wording her information as to the existence of the secret closet, that no suspicion might attach itself to the religion of her husband. Her confession sent a shock, which vibrated not only through Isabella's immediate court, but through every part of Spain. Suspicion once aroused, none knew where it might end, or on whom fall. In her first impulse to save Arthur, she had only thought of what such confession might bring to herself individually, and that was, comparatively, easy to endure; but as the excitement ceased, as the dread truth dawned upon her, that, if he must die at the expiration of the given month, her avowal had been utterly useless, the dread of its consequences, to the numerous secret members of her faith appalled her, and caused the firm resolve under no circumstances to betray the religion of her husband. Him indeed it could not harm; but that one so high in rank, in influence, in favor with sovereigns and people, was only outwardly a Catholic, might have most fatal consequences on all his brethren. That he should have wedded a Jewess might excite surprise, but nothing more; and in the midst of her varied sufferings she could rejoice that all suspicion as to his race and faith had been averted. She felt thankful also at being kept so close a prisoner, for she dreaded the wrath of those whom her avowal might have unwittingly injured. Such an instance had never been known before, and she might justly tremble at the chastisement it might bring upon her even from her own people. As long as she was under Isabella's care she was safe from this; all might feel the vibration, but none dared evince that they did, by the adoption of any measures against her, further than would be taken by the Catholics themselves. Knowing this, her sole prayer, her sole effort was to obtain mental strength sufficient under every temptation, either from severity or kindness, to adhere unshrinkingly to the faith of her fathers-to cling yet closer to the love of her Father in heaven, and endeavor, with all the lowly trust and fervid feelings of her nature, to fill the yearning void within her woman's heart with his image, and so subdue every human love. It seemed to her vivid fancy as if all the misfortunes she had encountered sprung from her first sinthat of loving a Nazarene. Hers was not the age to make allowances for circumstances in contradistinction to actual deeds. Then, as unhappily but too often now, all were sufferings from a misplaced affection-sprung, not from her fault, but from the mistaken kindness which it exposed her to without due warning of her danger. Educated with the strong belief, that to love or wed, beyond the pale of her own people was the greatest sin she could commit, short of actual apostacy, that impression, though not strong enough, so to conquer human nature, as to arm against love, returned with double force, as sorrow after sorrow gathered round her, and there were none beside her to whisper and strengthen, with the blessed truth that God afflicts yet more in mercy than in wrath; and that his decrees, however fraught with human anguish, are but blessings in disguise-blessings, sown indeed with tears on earth, to reap their deathless fruit in heaven. But though firmly believing all her suffering was deserved, aware that when she first loved Arthur, the rebel-thought "Why am I of a race so apart and hated?" had very frequently entered her heart, tempting her at times with fearful violence to give up all for love of man; yet Marie knew that the God of her fathers was a God of love, calling even upon the greatest sinner to return to him repentant and amending, and that even as a little child such should be forgiven. He had indeed proclaimed himself a jealous God, and would have no idol-worship, were it by wood or stone, or, far more dangerous, of human love; and she prayed unceasingly for strength to return to Him with an undivided heart, even if to do so demanded not only separation from Stanley-but a trial in her desolate position almost as severe-the loss of Isabella's confidence and love. Few words passed between Marie and her guardians; their manner was kind and gentle, but intercourse between rigid Catholics and a proclaimed Jewess, could not be other wise than restrained. From the time that reason returned, the Queen had not visited her, doing actual violence to her own inclinations from the mistaken-but in that age and to her character natural-dread that the affection and interest she felt towards Marie personally, would lessen the sentiments of loathing and abhorrence with which it was her duty to regard her faith. Isabella had within herself all the qualifications of a martyr. Once impressed that it was a religious duty, she would do violence to her most cherished wishes, sacrifice her dearest desires, her best affections, resign her most eagerly pursued plans-not without suffering indeed, but, according to the mistaken tenets of her religion, the greater personal suffering, the more meritorious was the deed believed to be. This spirit would, had she lived in an age when the Catholic faith was the persecuted, not the persecutor, have led her a willing martyr to the stake; as it was, this same spirit led to the establishment of the Inquisition, and expulsion of the Jews-deeds so awful in their consequences, that the actual motive of the woman-heart which prompted them is utterly forgotten, and herself condemned. We must indeed deplore the mistaken tenets that could obtain such influence-deplore that man could so pervert the service of a God of love, as to believe and inculcate that such things could be acceptable to Him; but we should pause, and ask, if we ourselves had been influenced by such teaching, could we break from it? ere we condemn. Isabella's own devoted spirit could so enter into the real reason of Marie's self abnegation for Arthur's sake, that it impelled her to love her more; while at the very same time the knowledge of her being a Jewess, whom she had always been taught and believed must be accursed in the sight of God, and lost eternally unless brought to believe in Jesus, urged her entirely to conquer that affection, lest its indulgence should interfere with her resolution, if kindness failed, by severity to ccomplish her own version. She was too weak in health, and Isabella intuitively felt too terribly anxious as to young Stanley's fate, to attempt any thing till after the expiration of the month; and she passed that interval in endeavoring to calm down her own feelings towards her. So fifteen days elapsed. On the evening of the fifteenth, Marie, feeling unusually exhausted, had sunk down, without disrobing, on her couch, and at length fell into a slumber so deep and calm, that her guardians, fearing to disturb it, and aware that her dress was so loose and light, it could not annoy her, retired softly to their own chamber without arousing her. How many hours this lethargic sleep lasted, Marie knew not, but was at length broken by a dream of terror, and so unusually vivid, that its impression lasted even through the terrible reality which it heralded. She beheld Arthur Stanley on the scaffold about to receive the sentence of the law-the block, the axe, the executioner with his arm raised, and apparently already deluged in blood-the gaping crowds-all the fearful appurtenances of an execution were distinctly traced, and she thought she sprung towards Stanley, who clasped her in his arms, and the executioner, instead of endeavoring to part them, smiled grimly as rejoicing in having two victims instead of one; and as he smiled, the countenance seemed to change from being entirely unknown to the sneering features of the hated Don Luis Garcia. She seemed to cling yet closer to Stanley, and knelt with him to receive the blow; when, at that moment, the scaffold shock violently, as by the shock of an earthquake, a dark chashm yawned beneath their feet, in the centre of which stood the spectral figure of her husband, his countenance ghastly and stern, and his arm upraised as beckoning her to join him. And then he spoke; but his voice sounded unlike his own: "Marie Henriquez Morales! awake, arise, and follow!" And with such extraordinary clearness did the words fall, that she started up in terror, believing they must have been spoken by her side-and they were! they might have mingled with, perhaps even created her dream. She still lay on her couch; but it seemed to have sunk down through the very floor of the apartment* she had occupied, and at its foot stood a figure, who, with upraised arm held before her a wooden cross. His cowl was closely drawn, and a black robe, of the coarsest serge, was secured round his waist by a hempen cord. Whether he had indeed spoken the words she had heard in her dream Marie could not tell, for they were not repeated. She saw him approach her, and she felt his strong grasp lift her from the couch, which sprung up, by the touch of some secret spring, to the place whence it had descended; and she heard no more. * I may be accused in this scene, of too closely imitating a somewhat similar occurrence in Anne of Geirstein. Such seeming plagiarism was scarcely possible to be avoided, when the superstitious proceedings of the vehmic tribunal of Germany and the secret Inquisition of Spain are represented by history as so very similar. CHAPTER XXIV. "ISABEL.-Ha! little honor to be much believed, Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world "ANGELO.-Who will believe thee? My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life, That you will stifle in your own report SHAKSPEARE. WHEN Marie recovered consciousness, she found herself in a scene so strange, so terrific, that it appeared as if she must have been borne many miles from Segovia, so utterly impos sible did it seem, that such awful orgies could be enacted within any short distance of the sovereigns' palace, or their subjects' homes. She stood in the centre of a large vaulted subterranean hall, which, from the numerous arched entrances to divers passages and smaller chambers that opened on every side, appeared to extend far and wide beneath the very bowels of the earth. It was lighted with torches, but so dimly, that the gloom exaggerated the horrors, which the partial light disclosed. Instruments of torture of any and every kind-the rack, the wheel, the screw, the cord, and firegroups of unearthly-looking figures, all clad in the coarse black serge and hempen belt; some with their faces concealed by hideous masks, and others enveloped in the cowls, through which only the eyes could be distinguished, the figure of the cross upon the breast, and under that emblem of divine peace, inflicting such horrible tortures on their fellow-men that the pen shrinks from their delineation. Nor was it the mere instruments of torture Marie beheld: she saw them in actual use; she heard the shrieks and groans of the hapless victims, at times mingled with the brutal leers and jests of their fiendish tormentors; she seemed to take in at one view, every species of torture that could be inflicted, |