"What does my Lord say, in that cruel letter," demanded the affectionate youth, "that can have affected you thus?"
Louis put the letter into his hands. It was not needful to point to the lines which had barbed him so severely; and Lorenzo read them with a bleeding heart, both for father and son. He remarked, that outraged as the Duke had been by the ingratitude of all the world, the extraordinary length of their voyage might have driven him to some misconception regarding their detention.
"It is hard," continued he, "to be entirely just ourselves, when every body about us treats us with injustice; and the Duke, though a great and a good man, is yet a man; and must share some of our infirmities. You, my Lord, will seek an opportunity to obey him immediately; and then, all these too natural suspicions must be destroyed."
Louis looked at the affectionate speaker.
"Excellent Lorenzo!" said he, "my father has found one faithful in your brother. If you too adhere to me, I shall not be quite alone in this desert universe!—I may yet find my father," murmured he to himself, "and die before him! My life, my life, is all I may now have, to prove my soul's integrity!" Much of this, and more, of the sad wanderings of a spirit overtasked, and wounded in its most susceptible nerve, passed in the mind, and on the half-uttering lips of Louis.
"But where," asked Lorenzo, "are we to seek this friend of Lindisfarne?"
"It is the Marquis Santa Cruz," replied Louis; "General Stanhope will probably tell me where to find him."
"The Marquis has a villa in the Val del Uzeda, between St. Ildefonso and the Escurial," replied Lorenzo, "and there, I know, his family usually resides, as the Marchioness is sometimes in attendance on the Queen."
"Then," cried Louis, "direct the postillions to drive thither. If the Marquis be there, I may yet see my father before another night englooms me in this direful Spain!"