“I spoke in anger, Roland,—anger caused by your passionate resolve. Remember, too, that I preferred holding you to your contract, in preference to allowing you to redeem it by paying the penalty.”
“Easy alternative,” said Cashel, with a scornful laugh; “you scarcely expected a beggar, a ruined gambler, could pay seventy thousand doubloons. But times are changed, sir. I am rich now,—rich enough to double the sum you stipulated for. Although I well know the contract is not worth the pen that wrote it, I am willing to recognize it, at least so far as the forfeit is concerned.”
“My poor child, my darling Maritaña,” said Pedro, but in a voice barely audible. The words seemed the feeble utterance of a breaking heart.
“Sorrow not for her, senhor,” said Cashel, hastily. “She has no griefs herself on such a score. It is but a few hours since she told me so.”
Don Pedro was silent; but a mournful shake of the head and a still more mournful smile seemed to intimate his dissent.
“I tell you, sir, that your own scorn of my alliance was inferior to hers!” cried Cashel, in a voice of deep exasperation. “She even went so far as to say that she was a party to the contract only on the condition of its utter worthlessness. Do not, then, let me hear of regrets for her.”
“And you believe this?”
“I believe what I have myself witnessed.”
“What, then, if you be a witness to the very opposite? What if your ears reveal to you the evidence as strongly against, as now you deem it in favor of, your opinion?”
“I do not catch your meaning.”