I have to tell you, senor, that he has demanded me for a wife, and my father, led away by what he considers Don Fernando's superiority over you, has favoured his suit so cordially, that in two days hence the betrothal is to take place with such secrecy and so privately that the only witnesses are to be the Heavens above and a few of the household.
Picture to yourself the state I am in; judge if it be urgent for you to come; the issue of the affair will show you whether I love you or not.
God grant this may come to your hand before mine shall be forced to link itself with his who keeps so ill the faith that he has pledged.' "Such, in brief, were the words of the letter, words that made me set out at once without waiting any longer for reply or money; for I now saw clearly that it was not the purchase of horses but of his own pleasure that had made Don Fernando send me to his brother.

The exasperation I felt against Don Fernando, joined with the fear of losing the prize I had won by so many years of love and devotion, lent me wings; so that almost flying I reached home the same day, by the hour which served for speaking with Luscinda.

I arrived unobserved, and left the mule on which I had come at the house of the worthy man who had brought me the letter, and fortune was pleased to be for once so kind that I found Luscinda at the grating that was the witness of our loves.

She recognised me at once, and I her, but not as she ought to have recognised me, or I her.

But who is there in the world that can boast of having fathomed or understood the wavering mind and unstable nature of a woman?
Of a truth no one.