"Gracious God! do I hear aright? You—you effected the death of Raphael!—she terrifies me! Merciful heavens!"
"Yes I! but you know not Raphael's real character. Twenty times, on witnessing your tears and regrets, I have been on the point of saying to you, 'You have nothing to regret, Raphael was unworthy of you but I refrained; now you shall hear my reason for thinking so."
"Explain yourself, unhappy girl; what does all this mean? or is it after all nothing but a cruel jest?"
"No, no; Iris jests not where you are concerned. Listen to me; you may remember having left me at Venice, but you can never form an idea of what I suffered in consequence of this separation; you either did not perceive my grief, or you took no heed of it; you were even displeased at the importunity with which I implored to be permitted to accompany you. God knows you would have acted more generously towards me had you allowed me to perish in the streets, than first to excite my gratitude and afterwards to find the manifestations of that overwhelming feeling troublesome and offensive."
"The wretched creature is mad! What has your gratitude to me to do with Raphael?"
"As I before said, you left me at Venice, to my extreme grief and misery. I could not, however, endure my existence without receiving further information respecting you than was contained in an occasional cold formal letter written by you to me; by force of prayers and supplications I prevailed on Inès, your waiting-maid, to send me a minute detail of all your proceedings. You would scarcely credit the perseverance, promises, and temptations, I was compelled to employ ere I could win over this cold and inanimate person to enter into my wishes sufficiently to undertake to write me a regular account of every day's transactions. You may judge a little by that how absorbing and all-engrossing was my attachment for you!"
"Alas!" said Paula, "I know not whether to execrate, pity, or admire your devotion."
"I probably deserve at once pity, hatred, and admiration," pursued Iris, boldly. "But to proceed. From Inès I learnt the ardent court paid you by Charles de Brévannes, and that public report asserted (though falsely) that you repaid his love. Your mind and heart were, however, entirely engrossed by Raphael, of whom you daily conversed with your aunt—and in Inès's presence—but during this time of fascination and deep passion on your part Raphael was grossly deceiving you."
"Raphael!—Raphael deceive me!—Oh, no! no! 'tis another vile falsehood on your part, invented for some base purpose!"
"Nay, then, you shall have the proof of his perfidy! His motive in visiting Venice was to release himself from his vows to you, he having pledged his faith to a young Greek of Zante, named Cora. Oh, I will prove this to you ere I have done! Well, he was fully aware of the confidence you reposed in me, and he gave me credit for a degree of influence over your mind which I was far from possessing—but listen to my tale: it was to me, then, he first whispered the history of his capricious falsehood, beseeching of me to communicate it to you with all possible care and skilfulness; from my lips he fancied the tidings of his perjury would sound less cruel!"