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"Fortunately for us the most loyal of men; a Spaniard by birth, but now an Italian who hates Bonaparte; a married man. He is ill, and gets up late and goes to bed early." "An Italian! What is his name?" "Montefiore." "Can it be the Marquis de Montefiore " "Yes, Senora, he himself." "Has he seen Juana?" "No," said Dona Lagounia. "You are mistaken, wife," said Perez.

Often she turned her eyes, brimming with tears proudly repressed, upon Perez and Dona Lagounia, who fully comprehended, both of them, the bitter thoughts those tears contained. But they were silent: of what good were reproaches now; why look for consolations? The deeper they were, the more they enlarged the wound.

Here it is," added Perez, taking it from a sideboard. "But it is useless. Juana's key is in the lock; her door is barricaded. We have been deceived, my wife!" he added, turning to Dona Lagounia. "There is a man in Juana's room." "Impossible! By my eternal salvation I say it is impossible!" said his wife. "Do not swear, Dona Lagounia.

Dona Lagounia had therefore left the young girl to the guardianship of lock and key, under the protection of religious ideas, all the more efficacious because they were partly superstitious, and also under the shield of a native pride and sensitive modesty which made the young Mancini in sort an exception among her sex.

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.

After stating the miseries of her position to Dona Lagounia, she confided her daughter and her daughter's fortune to the fine old Spanish honor, pure and spotless, which filled the precincts of that ancient house. Dona Lagounia had no child, and she was only too happy to obtain one to nurture.

A courtesan even in maternity, the Marana felt in the depths of her soul a jealous sentiment, stronger for the moment than that of love, and she left the church, incapable of resisting any longer the desire to kill Dona Lagounia, as she sat there, with radiant face, too much the mother of her child.

Dona Lagounia stayed beside her child and prayed and watched as she would have prayed and watched beside the dying. "God wills it," she said to Juana. Nature gives to woman alternately a strength which enables her to suffer and a weakness which leads her to resignation. Juana resigned herself; and without restriction.

"But a single fault is not vice," said the old woman, pitying as the angels. "Her mother gave her to this man," said Perez. "Yes, in a moment; without consulting the poor child!" cried Dona Lagounia. "She knew what she was doing." "But oh! into what hands our pearl is going!" "Say no more, or I shall seek a quarrel with that Diard." "And that would only lead to other miseries."

"Yes, but has any harm come to her; is she still " "Perfectly well," said Dona Lagounia. "O God! send me to hell if it so pleases thee!" cried the Marana, dropping, exhausted and half dead, into a chair. The flush in her cheeks, due to anxiety, paled suddenly; she had strength to endure suffering, but none to bear this joy.