The traveller frowned, and a livid pallor covered his face; but he immediately recovered himself.
"That question again, unhappy girl?" he said, in a gloomy voice; "Do not trifle with my wrath by reminding me of your crime, and the dishonour of my house."
At these words the girl drew herself up suddenly, and with a hurried gesture pulled off the velvet mask that covered her face.
"I am not guilty," she said, in a haughty voice, and looking her father in the face; "and you are perfectly aware of it, for it was you who introduced the Count de Barmont to me. You encouraged our love, and it was by your orders that we were secretly married. You dare not assert the contrary."
"Silence, wretch!" the traveller exclaimed, and rose passionately.
"Father!" the two gentlemen, who had hitherto remained motionless and as if strangers to this stormy interview, exclaimed, as they threw themselves before him.
"Well," he said, as he resumed his seat, "I will restrain myself: I will only ask you one further question, Doña Clara—will you obey me?"
She hesitated for a moment, and then appeared to form a supreme resolution.
"Listen to me, my father," she replied, in a hurried though firm voice; "you told me yourself that the moment for an explanation between us had arrived; very well, let us have this explanation. I, too, am your daughter, and jealous of the honour of our house; that is why I insist on your answering me without equivocation or deception."
While speaking thus, the young lady, who was only sustained by the factitious strength sorrow imparted to her, for she was frail and delicate, was supremely beautiful; with her body bent back, her head haughtily raised, her long and silky black hair falling in disorder on her shoulders, and contrasting with the marble pallor of her face; with her large eyes, inflamed by fever and inundated with tears, that slowly coursed down her cheeks, and with her bosom heaving from the emotion that held mastery over her—there was about her whole person something deathly, which seemed no longer to belong to the earth.