Will your paternity honour me?"
Frey Miguel bowed, and together they departed.
For three days thereafter the convent saw the friar only in the
celebration of the Mass. But on the morning of the fourth, he
went straight from the sacristy to the parlour, and, despite the
early hour, desired to see her Excellency.
"Lady," he told her, "I have great news; news that will rejoice
your heart." She looked at him, and saw the feverish glitter in
his sunken eyes, the hectic flush on his prominent cheek-bones.
"Don Sebastian lives. I have seen him."
A moment she stared at him as if she did not understand. Then she
paled until her face became as white as the nun's coil upon her
brow; her breath came in a faint moan, she stiffened, and swayed
upon her feet, and caught at the back of a prie-dieu to steady
and save herself from falling. He saw that he had blundered by
his abruptness, that he had failed to gauge the full depth of her
feelings for the Hidden Prince, and for a moment feared that she
would swoon under the shock of the news he had so recklessly
delivered.
"What do you say? Oh, what do you say?" she moaned, her eyes
half-closed.
He repeated the news in more measured, careful terms, exerting
all the magnetism of his will to sustain her reeling senses.
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