"What, my brother!" said Doña Inez, reproachfully, "you have not touched food to-day! You--so ill and weak?"
"I am a man--even still," said Gonsalvo with a little bitterness in his tone.
Doña Inez drank, and for a few moments fanned herself in silence, distress and embarrassment in her face.
At last Gonsalvo, who had never withdrawn his eager gaze, said in a low voice,--
"Sister, remember your promise."
"I am afraid--for you."
"You need not," he gasped. "Only tell me all."
Doña Inez passed her hand wearily across her brow.
"Everything floats before me," she said. "What with the music, and the mass, and the incense; and the crosses, and banners, and gorgeous robes; and then the taking of the oaths, and the sermon of the faith."
"Still--you kept my charge?"