But instead of this lofty Marquis de Montemar, gallant in attire, and resplendent in manly beauty; stern in resentful virtue; and upholding in his own high port, all the threatened honours of his race; she beheld a youthful, and a fine form indeed, but in a neglected dress covered with dust. The jewels of his hat were broken away; and its disordered plumage darkly shaded his colourless cheek and eyes, whence every ray of joy had fled. Beauty was there; but it was the beauty of sadness; it was the crushed ruin of what might once have been bright and aspiring.
Marcella wondered, for a moment, at the change which grief must have made; and with a very different sentiment from that with which she entered, she approached the son of Ripperda. She held a packet in her hand. Louis's heart bounded towards it, and he hastily advanced.
"From my father, Madam!"
"It was left with my mother two nights ago, by the Duke de Ripperda's servant;" replied she; "and he informed her, that the envelope directed to my father, contained a letter for the Marquis de Montemar. My mother would not detain it from you till she could present it herself; being only now preparing to leave her chamber, and therefore she confided its delivery to me."
As she spoke, she put the packet into his hand. By these words he found he was in the presence of the Marquis Santa Cruz's daughter; and, expressing his thanks, he begged permission to peruse it before he quitted the house. She answered politely in the affirmative, and immediately withdrew.
Louis had observed nothing of her face or figure, to distinguish her again from the next stranger who might enter the room. The novelty of her dress, however, could not escape even his possessed eye; and in the moment he learnt who she was, he thought of Ferdinand and Alice, and of their future union; of which her assumption of that garb seemed a promise. But as soon as she disappeared, he forgot both, and every accompanying circumstance, and even where he was, in his eagerness to make himself master of the contents of the packet.
On breaking the seal, a letter at the top of a bundle of papers presented itself. He seized it, and began to read it with avidity. It was written by Ripperda under all the exasperation of his mind, when he believed himself not merely the object of the world's ingratitude, but abandoned by his own and only son. Yet he forebore to specify his injuries; saying, that to name them, would be to stigmatize the whole human race. He had hitherto lived for universal man:—his days should terminate on a different principle. He would yet confound his enemies, and astonish Europe. But it should not be by embracing revenge through the treasons, whose arms were extended to receive and to avenge him. He would maintain his integrity to the last; and from the heights of Gibraltar assert the honour of a name, whose last glories might die with him, but never should wane in his person till he set in the grave.
Louis would not think twice on the implied suspicions against himself, which every sentence of the letter contained. They were bitterness to his heart; but he knew his innocence. He now knew the point to which his father was gone; and thither he determined to follow him.
The papers in the packet contained schedules of the vast properties of the Duke, that were cast over the face of Spain, in landed estates, immense manufactories, and countless avenues of merchandize.
"I bestow them all on my son;" was written by Ripperda on the envelope which contained the catalogue; "they may give power and consequence to the Marquis de Montemar, when he has forgotten that the Duke de Ripperda was his father."