The crowd exchanged looks of delight and surprise; and each or the nobles, before so wooing in their civilities to the minister, edged cautiously away.
His mortification had but begun. Presently Uzeda, hitherto almost a stranger to those apartments, appeared; the prince hastened to him, and in a few minutes the duke was seen following the prince into his private chamber. The sun of Calderon's favour seemed set. So thought the courtiers: not so the haughty favourite. There was even a smile of triumph on his lip--a sanguine flush upon his pale cheek, as he turned unheeding from the throng, and then entering his carriage, regained his home.
He had scarcely re-entered his cabinet, ere, faithful to his appointment, Fonseca was announced.
"What tidings, my best of friends?" exclaimed the soldier.
Calderon shook his head mournfully.
"My dear pupil," said he, in accents of well-affected sympathy, "there is no hope for thee. Forget this vain dream--return to the army. I can promise thee promotion, rank, honours; but the hand of Beatriz is beyond my power."
"How?" said Fonseca, turning pale and sinking into a seat. "How is this? Why so sudden a change? Has the queen--"
"I have not seen her majesty; but the king is resolved upon this matter: so are the Inquisition. The Church complains of recent and numerous examples of unholy and im politic relaxation of her dread power. The court dare not interfere. The novice must be left to her own choice."
"And there is no hope?"
"None! Return to the excitement of thy brave career."
"Never!" cried Fonseca, with great vehemence. "If, in requital of all my services--of life risked, blood spilt, I cannot obtain a boon so easy to accord me, I renounce a service in which even fame has lost its charm. And hark you, Calderon, I tell you that I will not forego this pursuit. So fair, so innocent a victim shall not be condemned to that living tomb. Through the walls of the nunnery, through the spies of the Inquisition, love will find out its way; and in some distant land I will yet unite happiness and honour. I fear not exile; I fear not reverse; I no longer fear poverty itself. All lands, where the sound of the trumpet is not unknown, can afford career to the soldier, who asks from Heaven no other boon but his mistress and his sword."
"You will seek to abstract Beatriz, then?" said Calderon, calmly and musingly. "Yes--it may be your best course, if you take the requisite precautions. But can you see her? can you concert with her?"
"I think so. I trust I have already paved the way to an interview. Yesterday, after I quitted thee, I sought the convent; and, as the chapel is one of the public sights of the city, I made my curiosity my excuse. Happily, I recognised in the porter of the convent an old servitor of my father's; he had known me from a child--he dislikes his calling--he will consent to accompany our flight, to share our fortunes: he has promised to convey a letter from me to Beatriz, and to transmit to me her answer."
"The stars smile on thee, Don Martin. When thou hast learned more, consult with me again. Now, I see a way to assist thee."
CHAPTER VI.
WEB UPON WEB.
The next day, to the discomfiture of the courtiers, Calderon and the Infant of Spain were seen together, publicly, on the parade; and the secretary made one of the favoured few who attended the prince at the theatre. His favour was greater, his power more dazzling than ever it had been known before. No cause for the breach and reconciliation being known, some attributed it to caprice, others to the wily design of the astute Calderon for the humiliation of Uzeda, who seemed only to have been admitted to one smile from the rising sun in order more signally to be reconsigned to the shade.
Meanwhile, Fonseca prospered almost beyond his hopes. Young, ardent, sanguine, the poor novice had fled from her quiet home and the indulgence of her free thoughts, to the chill solitude of the cloister, little dreaming of the extent of the change. With a heart that overflowed with the warm thoughts of love and youth, the ghostlike shapes that flitted round her, the icy forms, the rigid ceremonials of that life, which is but the mimicry of death, appalled and shocked her. That she had preserved against a royal and most perilous, because unscrupulous suitor, her fidelity to the absent Fonseca, was her sole consolation.
Another circumstance had combined with the loss of her protectress and the absence of Don Martin to sadden her heart and dispose her to the cloister. On the deathbed of the old woman, who had been to her as a mother, she had learned a secret hitherto concealed from her tender youth. Dark and tragic were the influences of the star which had shone upon her birth, gloomy the heritage of memories associated with her parentage. A letter, of which she now became the guardian and treasurer --a letter, in her mother's hand-woke tears more deep and bitter than she had ever shed for herself. In that letter she read the strength and the fidelity, the sorrow and the gloom, of woman's love; and a dreary foreboding told her that the shadow of the mother's fate was cast over the child's.