“Your grandfather, Don Guzman? Alvar, I am sorry,” exclaimed Cheriton; but Alvar interrupted him,—
“Sorrow insults me! I learn that he has made his will, that he leaves all to Manoel, that I—I, his grandson—am not fit to be his heir, ‘since I am a foreigner and a heretic, and unfit to be the owner of Spanish property.’”
“That seems very unjust,” said Cheriton, as Alvar paused for a moment.
“Unjust!” cried Alvar. “I am the victim of injustice. Here and there—it is the same thing. I have been silent—yes, yes—but I will not bear it. I will be what I please, myself—there, here, everywhere!”
“Nay, Alvar,” said Cherry gently; “here at least, you have met with no injustice.”
“And why?” cried Alvar, with the sudden abandonment of passion which now and then broke through his composure. “You are doubtless too honourable to plot and scheme; but your thoughts and your wishes, are they not the same—the same as this most false and unnatural traitor, who has stolen from me my inheritance and my grandfather’s love? What do you wish, my brothers—wish in your hearts—would happen to the intruder, the stranger, who takes your lands from you? Would you not see me dead at your feet?”
“We never wished you were dead,” said Bob indignantly, as Alvar walked about the room, threw out his hands with vehement gestures, stamped his foot, and gave way to a violence of expression that would have seemed ludicrous to his brothers but for the fury of passion, which evidently grew with every moment, as if the injury of years was finding vent. All the strong temper of his father seemed roused and expressed with a rush of vindictive passion, his southern blood and training depriving him at once of self-consciousness and self-control.
“What matter what you wish? Am I not condemned to a life which I abhor, to a place that is hateful to me, despised by one whose feet I would kiss, disliked by you all, insulted by those who should be my slaves? What is this country to me, or I to it? I care not for your laws, your magistrates, your people—who hate me, who would shoot me if they dared. And this—this—has lost me the place where I was as good as others. I lose my home for this—for you who stand together and wonder at me. I curse that villain who has robbed me; I curse the fate that has made me doubly an outlaw; most of all, I curse my father, whose neglect—”
“Silence!” said Cheriton; “you do not speak such words in our presence.”
The flood of Alvar’s words, half Spanish, half English, had fairly silenced the three brothers with amazement. Now he faced round furiously on Cheriton,—