"Rich, fair, and beloved!
"Can I be fair, so old as I am?
"We shall see!"
She pressed the secret spring, and pure and white as snow, large and glistening as the morning dew-drops, lay the Moorish pearls in their golden casket. She took them in her hand, and held them to the light, and it seemed as though they absorbed whole floods of sunshine. "How beautiful," she exclaimed, then suddenly she dropped them upon her lap, and pressed her hand to her heart.
What a strange, agonizing pain.
It seemed as though chains were riveted about her vitals.
"Can I be the second to touch the pearls, and forever a slave? No! no! It cannot be!
"Don Carlos the first, the hidalgo the second, I am the third.
"Rich, fair, and beloved! But this pain," and again she pressed her hands upon her heart. Slowly she replaced the pearls in the casket, and the pain passed away.
When Lenore recovered she would not look at the pearls.