The young girl paused for some moments, to allow the marquis the opportunity of answering, but, instead of doing so, he bit his lips and bowed his head.
Doña Laura smiled.
"The brutal way in which you have traitorously carried me off is the most decided proof to me of the odious scheme of which I have been the victim. If you really loved me, nothing was easier to you than to ask my hand of my father."
"Señorita, did you not answer to the demand I had the honour to address to you by a refusal?" asked the marquis.
"Certainly; but I am only a young girl," answered she, with animation, "a child, as you yourself have said, who does not know herself. That offer of marriage ought not then in any way, and especially with regard to the rules of society to have been addressed to me, but to my father. But no! You had another design: that marriage was but a pretext for you to seize on the immense riches you covet. At this moment you would not dare to maintain the contrary."
"Who knows?" murmured he, with an air of raillery.
"So you have preferred to cause me to fall into a snare, to carry me away from my family, whom my disappearance has plunged into the most profound despair, and to force me to follow you—I, a poor defenceless child, a prisoner in the midst of bandits, of whom you are the chief."
"Since, according to your own expression, Señorita, I have so brutally carried you away from your family, have I conducted myself towards you otherwise than as a gentleman of my name and race ought?"
"It is true," answered she, bursting into a fit of laughter; "I must admit that. But what is the cause of these attentions and this respect?"
"Love most sincere and most—"