He said, and darted out of the cathedral.

“How wild-brained!” said Lorenzo; “With so excellent an heart, what pity that he possesses so little solidity of judgment!”

The night was now fast advancing. The lamps were not yet lighted. The faint beams of the rising moon scarcely could pierce through the gothic obscurity of the church. Lorenzo found himself unable to quit the spot. The void left in his bosom by Antonia’s absence, and his sister’s sacrifice which Don Christoval had just recalled to his imagination, created that melancholy of mind which accorded but too well with the religious gloom surrounding him. He was still leaning against the seventh column from the pulpit. A soft and cooling air breathed along the solitary aisles: the moonbeams darting into the church through painted windows tinged the fretted roofs and massy pillars with a thousand various tints of light and colours. Universal silence prevailed around, only interrupted by the occasional closing of doors in the adjoining abbey.