"I seek no correspondence with Don Ferdinand, Sir, I never desire to hear from him in return for the letter I am so anxious he should receive. It is only to demand of him an act of justice to a lovely woman whose happiness he has destroyed. And to do this, I have solemnly engaged myself to her and to my own heart."
"Louis de Montemar," replied the Sieur, "you are entered on a course of life that will not admit of romantic trifling. There is but one direction for all your faculties:—the public good.—Private concerns must take care of themselves."
He closed the leathern-case over the dispatches, and covering its padlock with wax, stampt it with his seal. "I repeat, Sir," cried Louis impetuously, "I have pledged my honour, to the forwarding this letter to Don Ferdinand; and the public good will not deem it necessary to make me a private deceiver!"
Ignatius turned on him a look of haughty reproof.
"Young man, you know little of your duty towards the public good, if you can put its smallest tittle into competition with the adjustment of an amour between a weak girl and a profligate youth. Her folly must be her punishment."
The indignation of insulted virtue burnt upon the cheek of Louis.
"You mistake me, Sir! She for whom I am interested, is as pure from unchaste weakness, as my father's honour from stain. It is her soul that is enthralled, by a vow extorted from her by this ungenerous Spaniard; and to release her from the wretched load, is the sole purport of my letter to him." "You love the girl yourself," said the inflexible Ignatius, taking no visible notice of the encreasing agitation of his pupil.
"I do love her," returned he, "but not in the way your observation would imply. I love her, as becomes the son of the Baroness de Ripperda to love the daughter of her sister; that sister, who has been to him in the place of the mother heaven took from him at his birth! Alice Coningsby is the person to whom I have bound myself to release her conscience from the bonds of an artful man. And, after this explanation, I cannot believe that the friend of my father will longer withhold my letter!"
The Sieur listened with his eyes bent to the ground. He looked up when Louis ceased speaking; and saw, by his proud indignant air, that he rather expected occasion for further braving a refusal, than to receive the permission he affected to think could no longer be denied. "Louis," said he, "I see what is passing in your mind; but I will not be rigid to your present feelings. Your letter shall go to Don Ferdinand. But you must expunge from it all reference to where you are, and tell him, to send the acquittal of your imprudent cousin, direct to herself."
Surprised and thankful, Louis readily undertook to re-write the letter according to these injunctions; a few minutes put it into the form required, and inclosing the irresistible appeal of Alice herself, to her ungenerous lover, he sealed the packet, and delivered it to the Sieur. The dispatches being fastened up, it was to be committed to the particular charge of Castanos, who was to carry the bag to Madrid. Louis's grateful heart was again going to pour itself out, but Ignatius checked the ingenuous effusion, by turning severely round, as he moved to the door.