"Your Excellency, I thank you," cried Alvarado, seizing the hand of the old nobleman and carrying it to his lips.
"You said you loved her," said de Tobar turning to Alvarado.
"And so I do," answered Alvarado, "but who could help it? It is an infection I have caught from my friend."
"Have you spoken words of love to her? Have you pleaded with her? Did you meet here by appoint?"
"Don Felipe," cried Donna Mercedes, who had kept silent at first hardly comprehending and then holding her breath at the dénouement. "Hear me. Captain Alvarado's manner to me has been coldness itself. Nay, he scarcely manifested the emotion of a friend."
She spoke with a bitterness and resentment painfully apparent to Alvarado, but which in his bewilderment Don Felipe did not discover.
"I swear to you, señor," she went on cunningly, "until this hour I never heard him say those words, 'I love you.' But this scene is too much for me, I can not bear it. Help me hence. Nay, neither of you gentlemen. With Señora Agapida's aid I can manage. Farewell. When you wish to claim me, Don Felipe, the betrothal shall be carried out and I shall be yours. Good-night."
De Tobar sprang after her and caught her hand, raising it respectfully to his lips.
"Now, señor," he cried turning back, "we can discuss this question unhindered by the presence of the lady. You said you loved her. How dare you, a man of no birth, whose very name is an assumption, lift your eyes so high?"
"This from you, my friend," cried Alvarado, turning whiter than ever at this insult.