She had finished her prayer, when, as she turned to depart, she saw the figure of Dom Diego standing close beside her, and she shrunk back instinctively and cowered down to the ground.
"Forgive me for disturbing thee, lady," he said; "and I dispense with thy salute to thy superior; but as I sat alone, thy voice—so tender, so sweet—reached me, and I stood at the door till thy vesper hymns were finished. Would I could hear thee more frequently; but thou art chary of thy voice, except to the children, and to thy brother. Why am I excluded, and have to listen in stealth? Nay, I have a voice, too; and, I have heard it told me, a good one. We might join together in some of the old duets of our land, even here among the heathen."
"I pray thee let me pass, Signor," she said, timidly; for he stood between her and the door. He was not dressed in his robes, but in rich black velvet, and wore the plumed hat of a cavalier, which he carried now in his hand.
"Nay, be not hard on me, sweet lady, now that we shall have to spend so much of our time together till thy brother returns from Goa. Thou knowest thou art to be under my pastoral care, and fortunate am I to have so beautiful and so accomplished a companion. Ah, yes! thou wilt be kind to a solitary priest like me, and we can be happy if thou wilt till thy brother returns."
"Will he return?" asked the girl, eagerly. "Is this a true citation? Will he be safe? Answer me, Dom Diego, before the Mother of God, who sees us."
"Nay, if she can see," he cried, sneeringly, "if she can see, she will know what is in my heart. Safe? Thy brother safe? Yet, if thou wilt, he is."
Her pleading face, her hands uplifted to him, as it had been to the Virgin's picture, made him think for a moment that she had yielded to him; and the temptation in that foul heart was sudden and irresistible. "Maria!" he almost hissed between his teeth, "I repeat, if thou wilt, he is safe; but——"
"Speak," she said; "as a priest of the Holy Church give me thy assurance, and I will pray for thee day and night."
"Priest!" he exclaimed, with scorn. "I am a priest when it suits me to be so, and for the rest a cavalier of the world, like my Jesuit brethren. Love me, Maria," he cried, bending his knee; "love me, as I have loved thee for months in secret, and I can make thy brother pass through the terrors which await him at Goa with safety; but if not, he is a doomed man, and will die at the stake. Ha! ha! for the love of God! Nay, Maria, think me not cruel; 'tis thou who art cruel, my sweet. See, before the Virgin, to whom thou wert crying, I devote myself to thee; I am thine henceforth. If we may not stay here, there is the world before us. India, the Moghul, the Chinese, the sweet Spice Islands, where we may dream away our lives. Europe, if thou wilt, where many a priest like me hath his sweet leman, and no one unfrocks him. Come! I say," he urged tenderly; "come! Thou art young, thou art lovely, thou mightest be a queen. Come! the world is wide enough for us."