"Thank you," said Theodora, raising her eyes towards the speaker, "thank you for your kind intentions, but if anything could tend to the alleviation of my sorrows, it would be perhaps a free and unmolested indulgence of them."
"Oh, dear lady, but we must have no sorrowful faces at the wedding. Virgen de las Angustias! that would be dreadfully ominous. Cheer up, sweet lady; there is nothing in the world like a good example, and when you see every one rejoice, I am sure you will not mar the general joy. Cheer up, good lady—better days will come. To-morrow, at the wedding festival, your thoughts, I engage, will be fixed on other objects; such indeed as are interesting to every female who, like ourselves, is yet blessed in the primeval season of youth. Am I not right?"
"Happy!" cried Theodora, in a thrilling tone, "happy!" Then as if to veil the effect which her exclamation might produce, she added, "who can promise themselves happiness in this world?"
"Alack, and that is true!" responded Lisarda, "for many, many are the lovers who are born to be unfortunate and die of broken hearts." She strove to swell her own with a mighty sigh: "And even those who marry, how oft do they curse the day that—but this is neither here nor there."
"To-morrow! and is it really to-morrow, that the ceremony is to take place?" demanded Theodora.
"There is no doubt of it. God have mercy, the ceremony has been already delayed too long. The young lovers would have been united some months since, had not unavoidable impediments retarded the accomplishment of their mutual wishes."
A clamorous shout, and a burst of trumpets now announced the approach of Aguilar to Granada, and Lisarda with giddy steps sallied out, leaving Theodora to the undisturbed enjoyment of her gloomy reflections. The unfortunate child of Monteblanco had now the most unequivocal proof of her lover's baseness and treachery: Gomez Arias was faithless, but what an aggravation of guilt attached to his infidelity! His cold, heartless villainy seemed to surpass all power of conception, and Theodora for some time remained like one striving to recall the fleeting illusion of a horrid dream. Then she clasped her hands fearfully over her swollen eyelids; a few large drops fell on her cold marbled hands, and in those eyes flashed the wild resolution of despair.
A bitter smile now gently curled those parched and pallid lips, and she raised her trembling fingers to her forehead, expressing all the passive agonies of an absent mind. Then suddenly, as if actuated by a powerful impulse, she sprung upon her feet: she cautiously drew towards the casement in a listening attitude, and the names of Aguilar and Gomez Arias which floated in lengthening sound along the air, threw additional excitement on her already distracted feelings. But one day more, and she was to witness the completion of her lover's union with her rival. What a train of frightful associations this image brought to mind!
Dreadful was the conflict that Theodora had to sustain, and in that unequal warfare, her whole frame underwent an appalling change: her eyes glistened, and her hands shook violently, as she threw back with a resolute movement the tresses of her redundant hair. Again she stopped as if brooding over some frightful design; her throat became swollen with hysteric affection; the blood that hitherto had seemed congealed in its source, rushed with impetuosity down its wonted channels, and the blue veins through which the little rivulet of life had gently flowed, now became dark and turbid as the mountain stream. Her eyes shot the lurid flashes of madness; a wild laugh broke the harmony of the purest voice; and a malignant curl usurped the place where heavenly smiles had habitually sat.
Theodora, that soft and seraphic being who but a short time since, rich in the charms of native grace and loveliness, had been the star of a happy home, and the delight of a fond and admiring parent—that Theodora was now changed into the fearful semblance of a frantic being. Alas! such was the effect that a few moments had wrought, that the eyes of a fond parent would have in vain endeavoured to recognize his darling child. Feelings utterly foreign to the nature of Theodora, had now taken possession of the shattered fragments of a broken heart, once the shrine of hallowed and mental beauty; and those intelligent, soul-stirring features which nature had bestowed as the interpreters of soft sentiments and kindly feelings, now faithfully reflected the workings of impassioned and frenzied woe.