The Last Look

The Last Look
A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition
by W.H.G. Kingston
CHAPTER ONE.
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR.
The beauty of Seville is proverbial. "Who has not seen Seville, has not
seen a wonder of loveliness," say the Spaniards. They are proud indeed
of Seville, as they are of everything else belonging to them, and of
themselves especially, often with less reason. We must carry the reader
back about three hundred years, to a beautiful mansion not far from the
banks of the famed Guadalquiver. In the interior were two courts, open
to the sky. Round the inner court were marble pillars richly carved and
gilt, supporting two storeys of galleries; and in the centre a fountain
threw up, as high as the topmost walls, a bright jet of water, which fell
back in sparkling spray into an oval tank below, full of many-coloured
fish. In the court, at a sufficient distance from the fountain to avoid its
spray, which, falling around, increased the delicious coolness of the air,
sat a group of ladies employed in working tapestry, the colours they
used being of those bright dyes which the East alone could at that time
supply. The only person who was moving was a young girl, who was
frolicking round the court with a little dog, enticed to follow her by a
coloured ball, which she kept jerking, now to one side, now to the other,
laughing as she did so at the animal's surprise, in all the joyousness of
innocent youth. She had scarcely yet reached that age when a girl has
become conscious of her charms and her power over the sterner sex.
The ladies were conversing earnestly together, thinking, it was evident,
very little of their work, when a servant appearing announced the
approach of Don Gonzales Munebrega, Bishop of Tarragona. For the
peculiar virtues he possessed in the eye of the supreme head of his
Church, he was afterwards made Archbishop of the same see. Uneasy

glances were exchanged among the ladies; but they had scarcely time to
speak before a dignified-looking ecclesiastic entered the court,
followed by two inferior priests.
One of the ladies, evidently the mistress of the house, advanced to meet
him, and after the usual formal salutations had been exchanged, he
seated himself on a chair which was placed for him by her side, at a
distance from the rest of the party, who were joined, however, by the
two priests. The young girl no sooner caught sight of the Bishop from
the farther end of the hall, where the little dog had followed her among
the orange trees, than all trace of her vivacity disappeared.
"Ah, Dona Mercia, your young daughter reminds me greatly of you at
the same age," observed the Bishop, with a sigh, turning to the lady,
who still retained much of the beauty for which the young girl was
conspicuous.
"You had not then entered the priesthood; and on entering it, and
putting off the secular habit, I should have thought, my lord, that you
would have put off all thoughts and feelings of the past," answered
Dona Mercia calmly.
"Not so easy a task," replied the Bishop. "A scene like this conjures up
the recollection of days gone by and never to return. You--you, Dona
Mercia, might have saved me from what I now suffer."
"You speak strangely, Don Gonzales," said Dona Mercia. "Why
address such words to me? Our feelings are not always under our own
control. I know that you offered me your hand, and the cause of my
rejecting your offer was that I could not give you what alone would
have made my hand of value. I never deceived you, and as soon as I
knew your feelings, strove to show you what were mine."
"Indeed, you did!" exclaimed the Bishop, in a tone of bitterness. "You
say truly, too, that we cannot always control our feelings. My rival is
no more; and did not the office into which I rashly plunged cut me off
from the domestic life I once hoped to enjoy, what happiness might yet
be mine!"

"Oh, my lord, let me beg you not to utter such remarks," said Dona
Mercia, in a voice of entreaty. "The past cannot be recalled. God
chasteneth whom He loveth. He may have reserved for you more
happiness than any earthly prosperity can give."
A frown passed over the brow of the priest of Rome.
The lady of the mansion, anxious to turn the current of the Bishop's
thoughts, and to put a stop to a conversation which was annoying her--
fearing, indeed, from her knowledge of the man, that it might lead to
some proposal still more painful and disagreeable--called her young
daughter, Leonor de Cisneros, to her. Dona Leonor approached the
Bishop with