She urged him to proclaim himself.
His penance had been overlong already for what was really no
fault at all, since it is the heart rather than the deed that
Heaven judges, and his heart had been pure, his intention in
making war upon the Infidel loftily pious. Diffidently he
admitted that it might be so, but both he and Frey Miguel were of
opinion that it would be wiser now to await the death of Philip
II., which, considering his years and infirmities, could not be
long delayed. Out of jealousy for his possessions, King Philip
might oppose Sebastian's claims.
Meanwhile these daily visits of Espinosa's, and the long hours he
spent in Anne's company gave, as was inevitable, rise to scandal,
within and without the convent. She was a nun professed,
interdicted from seeing any man but her confessor other than
through the parlour grating, and even then not at such length or
with such constancy as this. The intimacy between them--fostered
and furthered by Frey Miguel--had so ripened in a few weeks that
Anne was justified in looking upon him as her saviour from the
living tomb to which she had been condemned, in hoping that he
would restore her to the life and liberty for which she had ever
yearned by taking her to Queen when his time came to claim his
own.
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