The young lady turned her head imperceptibly.
"I cannot!" Louis murmured, bowing his head.
Rosario shrugged her shoulders with an air of disappointment.
"Very well, caballero," Don Tadeo replied, with cold dignity; "you and your friend are free to act as to you seems best. Pardon me the questions I have put to you, but your resolution, which I in vain endeavour to account for, has destroyed past recovery a cherished hope, which I should have been most happy to have seen realised. Here is my letter to Don Gregorio Peralta; when do you wish to set out?"
"This very instant!" the count replied; "my friend and I intended to bid you farewell immediately after breakfast."
"Yes," Valentine continued, who perceived that his foster brother, overcome by his feelings, could not say any more; "we beg you to accept our thanks for the friendship you have deigned to display towards us, and to assure you that the remembrance of you will live in the bottom of our hearts."
"Farewell, then!" Don Tadeo said, with great emotion. "God grant that you may find elsewhere the happiness that awaited you here."
Valentine bowed without replying; his tears choked his utterance.
"Adieu, señorita!" murmured the count, in a tremulous low voice; "may you be happy?"
She made no reply: deeply wounded, he turned away quickly, and strode towards the door. In spite of all their resolution, when on the point of going out, the young men cast one look behind them, to salute for the last time persons who were so dear to them, and whom they were abandoning for ever. Don Tadeo stood motionless in the same place, apparently still as much surprised as hurt. Doña Rosario continued playing mechanically with the ears of the dog.