"Blessed Mother of God!" exclaimed Maria, sitting down hastily; "it cannot be Diego. What could have brought him here?"
"Diego! Yes, that was the name thy brother called him. But why dost thou ask?"
"He was my malignant enemy, sister."
"And Alla hath delivered thee from him. And thou wilt forgive him, Maria, even as I forgave mine."
"Yes," she replied, slowly, "I will indeed forgive him. See, my brother hath put on his vestment; he is holding up the cross, and the men about are kneeling, and the dying man is confessing his sins. Look!"
It was as she said. And the ghostly confession was proceeding, one of the men holding a cup of cordial to the sufferer's lips as he made motions for it—a broken tale of sin and crime, which we dare not attempt to record. Yet it came forth from the dry, parched lips hardly without a break till its close. Francis d'Almeida had not missed a word; though, from his extreme weakness, Dom Diego had sometimes spoken in low, broken whispers, gasping for breath.
"There is no more to tell," he said, faintly, at its close. "As I shall answer in the judgment, no more. I have hidden nothing; but, with the absolution of the Church, I pray thee let thy sister say, while I can hear and see, 'I forgive thee, Diego,' and I shall then die happy."
Then Francis sent for his sister, and whispered, "It is he. Dost thou forgive him, Maria?"
"Freely and truly," she said, firmly, "as I may be forgiven."
Dom Diego could not speak now, but he could hear the words which fell from the woman he had loved so madly and with so sinful a purpose. He tried to raise his hands, but they fell back on the sheet helplessly and his large bright eyes were glazing fast, and becoming dim. "Maria! Maria! forgive—pardon!" they heard him say in a whisper scarcely audible. And while the Bishop was holding up the cross before him, and preparing to recite the Beaticum, she could not resist the impulse, but took the cold hand of the dying man, and said, "I forgive; fear not." Then a soft smile of peace and resignation seemed to pass over his features. "Forgiven," he murmured; and as the words of "Depart, Christian soul, in the name of God the Father Almighty who created thee," were spoken, the spirit passed away with a slight shivering convulsion, and the body lay still in death; and the Bishop and his sister, their sweet voices mingling, chanted the Litany for the dead, which seemed to linger amidst the small domes and grooves of the high roof, echoed, as it were, by angels.