"You have surprised my secret, and I trust you to keep it," he answered. "When the monks were here they knew me as Father Antonio."
"Antonio, Antonio, Antonio—what a beautiful name!" she cried. "Come, Father Antonio, tell me. Your Bride is only Religion, or the Church, or the Virgin, or something like that?"
Her tone dismayed the monk even more than her words shocked him; and he remained silent.
"You cannot deny it," she exulted. Another flash of lightning silenced her; but the radiant eyes and glowing cheeks on which it shone were more eloquent than her words. And as soon as the swift darkness closed over them her words rang in it like New Year's bells at midnight. "You don't deny it, you can't, you daren't," she sang. "Your Bride is all a mere sentiment, like the azulejos; a romance; an ideal."
"First of all," demanded Antonio, "how did you come here to-night?"
"God sent me. I believe there's a God, at last."
He moved a little, so as to loosen her clasp. But, in her almost hysterical rapture, she did not perceive the movement.
"You are wet through," he said. But she only answered:
"What does it matter?"
"Quick!" he commanded. "There is a lull in the rain. You must go home this moment."