"Take my advice, employ all your power over the lady to induce her to give up this meeting, whose consequences may be terrible."
"I will try impossibilities to succeed, brother," the monk replied; "I will pray to Heaven to permit me to persuade my penitent."
"Yes," Montbarts added, in a gloomy voice, "it would be better for her and for me, perhaps, if we never met again."
And roughly turning his back on the monk, he hurried along the track, where he speedily disappeared.
When Fray Arsenio felt certain that this time the adventurer had really gone, he gently raised the curtain of the tent and stepped inside.
A woman was kneeling there on the bare ground, with her head buried in her hands, and praying with stifled sobs.
"Have I punctually accomplished your orders, my daughter?" the monk said.
The woman drew herself up and turned her lovely pale and tear-swollen face toward the monk.
"Yes, padre," she murmured, in a low and trembling voice. "Bless you for not abandoning me in my distress."
"Is this really the man with whom you desire an interview?"