"On me?" repeated Isabella, in a tone of surprised yet anxious inquiry.
"On thee, love. Thy perfect humility is ignorant of the fact—yet it is nevertheless perfectly true—that thou art reverenced, well nigh canonized, by the holy church; and thy words will have weight when mine would be light as air. Refuse the holy fathers all access to her; say she is unfitted to encounter them; that she is ill; nay, mad, if thou wilt. Bring forward the state in which she was borne from the hall; her very laugh (by St. Francis, it rings in my ear still) to confirm it, and they will believe thee. The present excitement will gradually subside, and her very existence be forgotten. Let none but thy steadiest, most pious matrons have access to her; forbid thy young maidens to approach or hold converse with her; and her being under thy protection can do harm to none. Let her be prisoner in her own apartments, an thou wilt; she deserves punishment for the deception practised towards thee. Treat her as thou deemest best, only give her not up to the mercy of the church!"
"Talk not of it," replied the Queen earnestly. "Unbeliever though she be, offspring of a race which every true Catholic must hold in abhorrence, she is yet a woman, Ferdinand, and, as such, demands and shall receive the protection of her Queen. Yet, would there were some means of saving her from the eternal perdition to which, as a Jewess, she is destined; some method, without increase of suffering, to allure her, as a penitent and believing child, to the bosom of our holy mother church."
"And to do this, who so fitted as thyself, dearest Isabel?" answered the King with earnest affection. "Thou hast able assistants in some of thy older matrons, and may after a while call in the aid of Father Denis, whose kindly nature is better fitted for gentle conversion than either Francis, or thy still sterner chaplain, Torquemada. Thy kindness has gained thee the love of this misguided one; and if any one have sufficient influence to convert, by other than sharp means, it can only be thyself."
Isabella was not long undecided. Her heart felt that to turn Marie from blindness and perdition by kindness and affection would be indeed far more acceptable to the virgin (her own peculiar saint) than the heretic's blood, and she answered with animation, "Then so it shall be, Ferdinand; I fear me, alas! that there will be little reason to prevaricate, to deny all spiritual access to her. Thy report, combined with my terrified Catherine's, gives me but little hope for health or reason. But should she indeed recover, trust me she shall be happy yet."
Great was the astonishment of the guards as they beheld their Sovereign fearlessly enter the chamber of a proclaimed Jewess—a word in their minds synonymous with the lowest, most degraded rank of being; and yet more, to hear and perceive that she herself was administering relief. The attendants of Isabella—whose curiosity was now more than satisfied, for the tale had been repeated with the usual exaggerations, even to a belief that she had used the arts of sorcery on Morales—huddled together in groups, heaping every opprobrious epithet upon her, and accusing her of exposing them all to the horrors of purgatory by contaminating them with her presence. And as the Sovereign re-appeared in her saloon with the leech Benedicto, whose aid she had summoned, there were many who ventured to conjure her not to expose herself to such pollution as the tending of a Jewess—to leave her to the fate her fraud so merited. Even Catherine, finding to disbelieve the tale any longer was impossible, and awed and terrified at the mysterious words of her companions, which told of danger to her beloved mistress, flung herself on her knees before her, clasping her robe to detain her from again seeking the chamber of Marie. Then was the moment for a painter to have seized on the face and form of Isabella! Her eye flashed till its very color was undistinguishable, her lip curled, every feature—usually so mild and feminine—was so transformed by indignation into majesty and unutterable scorn as scarcely to have been recognized. Her slight and graceful form dilated till the very boldest cowered before her, even before she spoke; for never had they so encountered her reproof:—
"Are ye women?" she said at length, in the quiet, concentrated tone of strong emotion; "or are we deceived as to the meaning of your words? Pollution! Are we to see a young, unhappy being perish for want of sympathy and succor, because—forsooth—she is a Jewess? Danger to our soul! We should indeed fear it; did we leave her to die, without one effort to restore health to the frame, and the peace of Christ to the mind! Has every spark of woman's nature faded from your hearts, that ye can speak thus? If for yourselves you fear, tend her not, approach her not—we will ourselves give her the aid she needs. And as for thee," she continued severely, as she forced the now trembling Catherine to stand upright before her, "whose energy to serve Marie we loved and applauded; child as thou art, must thou too speak of pollution? but example may have done this. Follow me, minion; and then talk of pollution if thou canst!" And with a swift step Isabella led the way to the chamber of Marie.
"Behold!" she said emphatically, as she pointed to the unhappy sufferer, who, though restored to life, was still utterly unconscious where she was or who surrounded her; her cheek and brow, white and damp; her large eye lustreless and wandering; her lip and eyelid quivering convulsively; her whole appearance proving too painfully that reason had indeed, for the time, fled. The soul had been strong till the dread words were said; but the re-action had been too much for either frame or mind. "Catherine! thou hast seen her in her beauty, the cherished, the beloved of all who knew her—seen her when no loveliness could mate with hers. Thou seest now the wreck that misery has made, though she has numbered but few more years than thou hast! Detest, abhor, avoid her faith—for that we command thee; but her sex, her sorrow, have a claim to sympathy and aid, which not even her race can remove. Jewess though she be, if thou can look on her thus, and still speak of pollution and danger, thou art not what we deemed thee!"
Struck to the heart, alike by the marked display of a mistress she idolized and the sympathy her better nature really felt for Marie, Catherine sunk on her knees by the couch, and burst into tears. Isabella watched her till her unusual indignation subsided, and then said more kindly, "It is enough; go, Catherine. If we judge thee rightly thou wilt not easily forget this lesson! Again I bid thee abhor her faith; but seek to win her to the right path, by gentleness and love, not prejudice and hate."
"Oh! let me tarry here and tend her, my gracious Sovereign," implored Catherine, again clasping Isabella's robe and looking beseechingly in her face—but from a very different feeling to the prompter of the same action a few minutes before—"Oh, madam, do not send me from her! I will be so gentle, so active—watch, tend, serve; only say your Grace's bidding, and I will do it, if I stood by her alone!"