"What was it?" I asked, unable to restrain my anxious curiosity.
"I am afraid you may think it long," said. Sir Edmund; "but if you are to decide the point in question you must have patience to hear the story:—
"Lorenzo, that was our friend's name, had been engaged in several skirmishes with the gendarmerie, that had been sent into the mountains to arrest the gang to which he belonged; he was known by sight, and had once or twice narrowly escaped being seized. He had a personal enemy among the gendarmes—a man called Giacomo, whose jealousy he had excited some years previously at a country fair. They had quarrelled about a girl whom both were making love to. Lorenzo had struck him, and Giacomo had not returned the blow before they were separated, and his rival safe in the mountains beyond the reach of his vengeance. He brooded over this recollection for several years; and when he found himself, at last, officially in pursuit of his enemy, he followed him as a hungry beast tracks his prey. One evening, with two or three of his men, he had dodged him for several hours. Lorenzo had made with incredible speed for a spot where, between the fissures of the rock, he knew of a secret passage by which he could elude the pursuit, and place himself in safety. He strained every nerve to turn the corner before his pursuers could be upon him, and mark the place where he disappeared. Between him and that comer, there was now nothing left but a slight wooden bridge thrown over a precipice. As he was rushing across it, Giacomo, with the instinctive feeling that his enemy was escaping him, by one tremendous leap from the top of the rock which overhung the bridge, reached it at the same moment. The shock broke to pieces the frail support; the hand-rail alone did not give way, and to this, by their hands alone, the two men clung. They were close to each other—they looked into each other's faces—neither could move. Lorenzo's eyes were glazed with terror; Giacomo's glared with fury; he was nearest the edge, his men were in sight, and he called to them hoarsely. Lorenzo gave himself up for lost. At that moment, above their heads, on the edge of the rock, something moved—both looked up. A blow, a tremendous blow, fell on Giacomo's head; his features grew distorted, they quivered in agony—a yell of torture escaped him: another blow, and his brains flew upon the face and hands of his foe. A mist seemed to cover Lorenzo's eyes; but he felt something stretched out to him—he clung to it instinctively, he scrambled, he darted into the cavern, he fainted, but he was safe."
"And who had saved him?" we all exclaimed.
"Amina, a girl whom he was courting, and by whom he was beloved. She was carrying home to her father a large sledge-hammer which he had lent to a neighbour. Passing alone through that wild region, she saw the desperate situation of the two men, recognised her lover struggling with the gendarme, heard the shouts of the latter to his comrades, and rushed to the spot."
"A brave girl," exclaimed Henry.
"How did the romance end?" asked Mrs. Ernsley.
"Ah! there's the point," said Sir Edmund. "I asked Lorenzo if he did not love the girl twice as much since her gallant conduct. 'I was very grateful to her,' he answered, 'but I was no longer in love with her.' I exclaimed in astonishment, but he persisted; it was very odd certainly, she had saved his life, and he would have done anything to serve her; 'But you know, gentlemen,' he added, 'one cannot help being in love, or not being in love; and when I looked at Amina's black eyes, I could not help shuddering, for I remembered the look they had, when she gave Giacomo that last blow, and it was not pleasant, and in short I could not be in love with her, and there was an end of it.'"
"And is it possible," exclaimed Mrs. Ernsley, "that he was so ungrateful as to forsake her?"
"No; he told me he would have married her, if she had wished it, but she did not; 'Perhaps,' he said, 'she saw I was no longer in love with her; but she did not seem to care much, and there was an end of it,' as he said before. Now I own I cannot understand the fellow's feeling; if anybody had saved my life, as Amina saved his, I really believe I should have fallen in love with her, had she been old and ugly; but a handsome girl, whom he was in love with before, that she should lose his heart, in consequence of the very act for which he should have adored her, passes, I confess, my comprehension. But Edward Middleton disagreed with me; he thought it perfectly natural. 'It was hard upon her,' he said, 'and could no be defended on the ground of reason; but there were instincts, impulses, more powerful than reason itself; and unjust and cruel as it might seem, he could not wonder at the change in Lorenzo's feelings.'"