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But he that showed himself most solicitous in this kind, and so much that many took notice of him for it, was a man clad in one of those habits which they wear who return home redeemed from their captivity with a mark of the Trinity on their breasts, in token that they have been liberated by the charity of their redeemers. This captive, then, at that very time that Isabella had set one foot within the porch of the convent, whither were come forth to receive her, as the use is amongst them, the Prioress and the nuns, with a loud voice he cried out, “Stay, Isabella, stay! for whilst that I shall be alive thou canst not enter into any religious order.”

At the hearing of these words Isabella and her parents looked back, and saw that, cleaving out his way through the thickest of the throng, that captive came making towards them, whose blue round bonnet being fallen off which he wore on his head, he discovered a confused and entangled skein of golden-wired hairs, curling themselves into rings, and a face intermixed with crimson and snow, so pure red and white was his complexion, all of them assured signs and tokens inducing all of them to take and hold him to be a stranger.

In effect, one while falling through too much haste, and then getting him up quickly again, he came at last where Isabella was, and taking her by the hand said unto her, “Knowest thou me, Isabella? Look well upon me; behold that I am Ricaredo thy husband.”

“Yes, I know thee,” replied Isabella, “if thou art not a phantasma, that is come to disturb my repose.”

Her parents drew nearer and nearer unto him, and did view and eye him very narrowly, and in conclusion came certainly to know that this captive was Ricaredo; who with tears in his eyes, falling down on his knees before Isabella, besought her that the strangeness of that habit wherein she now saw him might not be a bar to her better knowledge of him, nor that this his mean and baser fortune should be a hindrance to the making good of that word and faithful promise which they had given and plighted each to other.

Isabella, maugre the impression which Ricaredo’s mother’s letter had made in her memory, sending her the news of his death, chose rather to give more credit to her eyes and the truth which she had present before her, than to trouble herself to make a further needless inquiry. And therefore, kindly embracing the captive, she said unto him:

“You doubtless, sir, are the only man who can hinder my determination; since that you are truly my husband, you can be no less than the better half of my soul. I have thee imprinted in my memory, and have laid thee up in my heart. The news of your death, which my lady and your mother wrote to me, if it did not take away my life, made me choose the life of religion, which at this moment I sought to enter, to live in it. But since God by so just an impediment shows that He desires otherwise, neither can we hinder it nor does it become me that on my part His will should be hindered. Come therefore, sir, unto my father’s house, which is yours, and there I will deliver up unto you the possession of my person, on the terms which our holy Catholic faith demands.”

All these words the standers-by heard, together with the Asistente, the Dean, and the Archbishop’s Vicar-General of Seville; at the hearing whereof they were all of them stricken with admiration, and stood a while as men astonished; and were desirous that it might presently be told them what history this, and what stranger that was, and of what marriage they treated. Whereunto Isabella’s father made answer, saying that that history required another place and some time for to tell it; and therefore besought them, since that they were so willing to know it, that they would be pleased to return back with him to his house, seeing that it was so near, and that there it should be recounted unto them, and in such a manner that with the truth thereof they should remain satisfied, and at the strangeness of that sequel amazed.