CHAPTER XXIII.
"Oh! blissful days, When all men worship God as conscience wills! Far other times our fathers' grandsires knew.
What tho' the skeptic's scorn hath dared to soil The record of their fame! What tho' the men Of worldly minds have dared to stigmatize The sister-cause Religion and the Law With Superstition's name! Yet, yet their deeds, Their constancy in torture and in death-- These on Tradition's tongue shall live; these shall On History's honest page be pictur'd bright To latest time." GRAHAME.
Retrospection is not pleasant in a narrative; but, if Marie has indeed excited any interest in our readers, they will forgive the necessity, and look back a few weeks ere they again arrive at the eventful day with which our last chapter closed.

All that Don Felix had reported concerning the widow of Morales was correct.

The first stunning effects of her dread avowal were recovered, sense was entirely restored, but the short-lived energy had gone.

The trial to passively endure is far more terrible than that which is called upon to _act_ and _do_.

She soon discovered that, though nursed and treated with kindness, she was a prisoner in her own apartments.