"And I, on my part, am not willing that you should die!" she replied, with an accent of ineffable tenderness. "To attach yourself to me is to court destruction. I went to France to seek a place of refuge. I was obliged to quit that hospitable land with the greatest suddenness. Arrived here only a few weeks since, but for you, last night, I should have been lost! No, no, I am condemned; I know I am, and I am resigned; but I will not drag you down in my fall! Alas! I am, perhaps, doomed to suffer tortures still more horrible than those I have hitherto endured! Oh, Louis, in the name of the love which you have for me, and which I fully share, leave me the supreme consolation in my wretchedness of knowing that you are safe from the torments which overwhelm me!"
At this moment Valentine's voice was heard at a short distance, and Cæsar came wagging his tail to his master. Doña Rosario gathered a blossom of the suchil which grew close to them, and presented it to the young man, after having for a moment inhaled its sweet odour.
"Here," she said, "my friend, accept this flower, the only memorial, alas! that will remain with you of me."
The young man concealed the flower in his bosom.
"Someone is coming," she continued, in broken accents. "Swear, Louis! swear to quit this country as soon as possible, without endeavouring to see me again."
The Count hesitated.
"Oh!" he cried, "some day, perhaps,——"
"Never on earth. Have I not told you that I am condemned? Swear, Louis, that at least I may hope to meet you again in heaven."
She pronounced these words with such a tone of despair, that the young man, overcome, in spite of himself, made a gesture of assent, and let the almost inarticulate words escape his lips,—
"I swear to do so!"