"What is impossible? And why?" he hastily asked, sitting upright in his chair.
"Because I intend to leave all I have, whether much or little, to your daughter. I have promised her that I will."
Salabert had never dreamed of stumbling on such an obstacle, he had thought of the mutual bequest as a settled thing. He was equally startled and vexed, but he immediately recovered himself, and assuming a serious and dignified manner, he spoke:
"Very good, Carmen. I have no wish to coerce you in the matter. You are mistress of your possessions, and can leave them to whom you choose, though you must remember that that fortune has been earned by me at the cost of much toil. During the years of our married life, pecuniary questions have never given rise to any differences between us, and I sincerely wish that they never may. Money, as compared with the feelings of the heart, is of no importance whatever. The thing that pains me is the thought that any other person, even though it be my own daughter, should have usurped my place in your affections."
At these words his voice broke a little.
"No, Antonio, no," Doña Carmen hastened to put in. "Neither your daughter nor any one else can rob you of the affection due to you. But you are rich enough without needing my fortune, and she wants it."
"No. It is vain to try to soften the blow, I feel it in the depths of my heart," replied Salabert in pathetic accents, and pressing one hand to his left side. "Five-and-thirty years of married life, five-and-thirty years of joys and griefs, of fears and hopes in common, have not availed to secure me the foremost place in your affections. Nothing that can be said will remedy that. I fancied that our union, the years of love and happiness that we have spent together, might be closed by an act which would crown our lives by making one of us inherit the whole of what we have gained. The devotion of a husband and wife is never better displayed than in a last will and testament."
Requena's oratory had risen to a tone of moral dignity which, for a moment, seemed to impress his wife. However, she replied with perfect sweetness but unshaken firmness:
"Though Clementina is not my own flesh and blood, I love her as if she were. I have always regarded her as my own child, and it seems to me an act of injustice to deprive a child of its share of an inheritance."
"But, my dear," exclaimed the Duke vehemently, "for whom do you suppose I want it but for my daughter? Make me your heir, and I pledge myself to transmit it to her, not only undiminished but greatly augmented."