"Do you not know," continued the count, with endearing accents,—"do you not know, daughter, that, from the time I lost your mother, you have been the sole being in this world that I have loved? Do you think that I have no care for your happiness because I have sworn that you never shall be the bride of the son of De Vivar?"
"But, father," said the young girl timidly, "you know that such an oath destroys my happiness during my entire life."
"It will destroy it, if you do not forget Rodrigo."
"And do you believe that I can forget him? Do you believe that a love can be forgotten that had its birth almost at the same time that we had ours? Do you believe that it is possible for a woman to forget a man like Rodrigo?"
"Nothing resists time and injuries received. Those which Diego Lainez has inflicted on your father are such that your union with his son would be an unbearable humiliation, not alone to a race like that of De Gormaz, but even to that of a low-born peasant. He who has so vilely calumniated me at the Court; he who, for his own aggrandisement, has lowered me so much in the eyes of the king; he who has robbed me of the favour of Don Fernando; he who has been so treacherous to his most loyal friend, deserved that your father should refuse to his son your hand, and even should strike him in the face before those in whose eyes he had so humiliated me."
"Consider, my father, that a fatal error may have blinded you. If you do not wish to commit an unjust act, if you do not desire to enter into a contest in which both of us may die, you by a lance or sword wound, and I by the grief which your loss would cause me, make good the insult which you offered to Diego Lainez in the saloons of the Alcazar, and forget for ever those which you imagine that you have received from him"—
"Ximena!" exclaimed the count in a severe tone, "what advice is this you dare to give me? If it were another who so counselled me, I would tear out his tongue. Do you value so little the honour of your father, and do you consider him such a coward, as to think that he should ask pardon of him in whose face he would rather spit?"
The anger which the count exhibited whilst speaking those words discouraged Ximena, and deprived her of her last hope. The daughter of Don Gome answered her father with tears alone. He, feeling compassion for her grief, repented of his sudden burst of indignation, and clasped her again to his heart, pressing with his lips her pale brow. He felt, doubtless, that his pride was yielding in presence of his child's grief, and in order not to desist from his intention of responding with fresh insults to the reparation which he felt would soon be demanded from him by De Vivar, he went off from Ximena, who followed him with her eyes to the door of the chamber as sadly as if it were the last time she should ever see him.
The king, who desired to bring about the reconciliation of the count with Diego Lainez, fearful of the fierce strife which otherwise would blaze up between the partisans of the two noble families, summoned Don Gome to the Alcazar. At the moment when the count left his house in order to obey the order of the king, there rode into the square a body of knights who, apparently, were also proceeding to the Alcazar. Amongst them was Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, who, as soon as he perceived the count, separated himself from his companions, and made his way hastily towards him.