Not till Beatriz (I have so baptised her--it was thy mother's name!) has attained to the age when reason can wrestle with the knowledge of sorrow, shall her years be shadowed with the knowledge of our fate.

Leonarda has persuaded me that Beatriz shall not take thy name of Nunez.

Our tale has excited horror--for it is not understood--and thou art called the murderer of thy wife; and the story of our misfortunes would cling to our daughter's life, and reach her ears, and perhaps mar her fate.

But I know that thou wilt discover her not the less, for Nature has a Providence of its own.

When at last you meet her, protect, guard, love her--sacred to you as she is, and shall be--the pure but mournful legacy of love and death.