"A secret! That of my love. Did I not tell you that I love you, Louis?"
"Alas! and I, too, love you," he replied sorrowfully. "And yet I cannot think of that love without alarm."
"Why so if you love me?"
"If I love you, child! For you and your love I would sacrifice everything."
"Well?" she said.
"Alas, child! I am an accursed man. My love is deadly, and I tremble."
"What greater joy than to die for the man I love?"
"I am proscribed—a pirate, an outlaw."
She drew herself up proudly and haughtily, with frowning brow, dilated nostrils, and flashing eye.
"You are truly noble, Don Louis!" she almost shrieked in her excitement. "You have dreamed of the regeneration of an enslaved people. What do I care for the names given you, my friend? The day will come when brilliant justice will be done you." Then growing gradually calmer, she smiled tenderly. "You are proscribed, my poor darling," she said gently; "and is it not woman's mission in this world to support and console? The struggle you are about to undertake will be terrible. Your project is almost a madman's for grandeur and boldness: perhaps you will succumb in this struggle. You need, not a counsellor or a brother, but a woman friend whose soul understands yours; from whose heart your heart keeps no secrets; who consoles you, and cries 'Courage!' when you allow despair to master you, and when, like a vanquished Titan, you feel ready to retire. That faithful, devoted friend, ever watchful over you and for you, I will be, Don Louis—I who will never leave you, and who, if you fall, will fall by your side, struck by the same blow that crushed you."