"Yet you have been betrayed by your mistress? What do I say? by your wife."
"She was never either one or the other. She owes me no duty. God has vouchsafed her his love—the most celestial of his boons—as her reward for having pitied me for a moment on my death-bed. Shall I still hold her to a promise wrested from her generous compassion and sublime charity? Should I do so, I would then say, 'Woman, I am your master. You are mine by law, by your own imprudence and error. You shall tolerate my embraces, because once on our parting day you kissed my icy brow. You shall place your hand in mine forever, walk my way, bear my yoke, crush the young love in your bosom, trample down irrepressible desires, and consume in sorrow, in my profane arms, on my selfish and cowardly heart.' Oh! Trenck, think you I could be happy did I act thus? Would not my life be a bitterer torment than her own? The suffering of the slave would be the master's curse. Great God! what being is so degraded, so brutal, as to become proud and intoxicated with a love which is not mutual, with a fidelity against which the heart of the victim revolts? I thank heaven that such I am not and cannot be. I was going this evening to see Consuelo, and tell her all this, and restore her to liberty. I did not meet her in the garden where she usually walks, and then this storm came and stripped me of the hope of seeing her. I did not wish to visit her rooms. I would then have used my rights as a husband. The quivering of her terror, the very pallor of her despair, would have done me an injury I cannot bear."
"And have you not also met in the dark Leverani's black mask?"
"Who is Leverani?"
"Are you ignorant of your master's name?"
"Leverani is an assumed name. Do you not know this man, my happy rival?"
"No; but you ask this in a strange manner. Albert, I think I understand you. You pardon your unfortunate wife. You abandon her, as you should do. You should, however, chastise her base seducer."
"Are you sure he is base?"
"What! the man to whom the care of her rescue, and the keeping of her person during a long and dangerous journey was confided—the man who should protect and respect her, who should not speak to her or show her his face—a man invested with the power and blind confidence of the Invisibles—your brother in arms and oath, as I am? Ah! had that woman been confided to me, I would not have dreamed of the base treachery of winning her love."
"Once more, Trenck, you know not what you say. Only three of us know this Leverani and his crime. In a few days you will cease to blame this happy mortal, to whom God in his goodness has vouchsafed Consuelo's love."