“'Stained as it may be,' said I, 'that same English blood is the best pride I possess.' She grew pale with passion as I said this, but never spoke a word; and there we stood, staring haughtily at each other, till she pointed to the door, and so I left her. And now, Ida, who is she that treats me thus disdainfully? I ask you not in anger, for I know too well how the world regards such as me to presume to question its harsh injustice. But tell me, I beseech you, that she is one to whose station these prejudices are the fitting accompaniments, and let me feel that it is less myself as the individual that she wrongs, than the class I belong to is that which she despises. I can better bear this contumely when I know that it is an instinct.”
“If birth and blood can justify a prejudice, a Princess of the house of Delia Torre might claim the privilege,” said the girl, haughtily. “No family of the North, at least, will dispute with our own in lineage; but there are other causes which may warrant all that she feels towards you even more strongly, Sebastian. This boast of your English origin, this it is which has doubtless injured you in her esteem. Too much reason has she had to cherish the antipathy! Betrayed into a secret marriage by an Englishman who represented himself as of a race noble as her own, she was deserted and abandoned by him afterwards. This is the terrible mystery which I never dared to tell you, and which led us to a life of seclusion at Massa. This is the source of that hatred towards all of a nation which she must ever associate with the greatest misfortunes of her life! And from this unhappy event was she led to make me take that solemn oath that I spoke of, never to link my fortunes with one of that hated land.”
“But you told me that you had not made the pledge,” said he, wildly.
“Nor had I then, Sebastian; but since we last met, worked on by solicitation, I could not resist; tortured by a narrative of such sorrows as I never listened to before, I yielded, and gave my promise.”
“It matters little to me!” said he, gloomily; “a barrier the more or the less can be of slight moment when there rolls a wide sea between us! Had you ever loved me, such a pledge had been impossible.”
“It was you yourself, Sebastian, told me we were never to meet again,” rejoined she.
“Better that we had never done so!” muttered he. “Nay, perhaps I am wrong,” added he, fiercely; “this meeting may serve to mark how little there ever was between us!”
“Is this cruelty affected, Sebastian, or is it real?”
“It cannot be cruel to echo your own words. Besides,” said he, with an air of mockery in the words, “she who lives in this gorgeous palace, surrounded with all the splendors of life, can have little complaint to make against the cruelty of fortune!”
“How unlike yourself is all this!” cried she. “You of all I have ever seen or known, understood how to rise above the accidents of fate, placing your happiness and your ambitions in a sphere where mere questions of wealth never entered. What can have so changed you?”