The first impression of astonishment had now subsided, and Don Lope, in a broken voice, exclaimed—"Theodora! Heavens! is it thou?"
"Yes," she answered, gloomily, "it is the lost, the wretched Theodora, once the object of thy adoration, and now thy curse. But tremble not; the dreadful moment is passed, and I cannot harm thee; for though thou hast cruelly betrayed me, thou art still Gomez Arias."
"How came you hither?" demanded Don Lope, with emotion: "What was your intention?"
"Behold!" she replied, with a bitter smile, pointing to the dagger that shone on the ground; "I came to kill thee—I came to deal out a reward but little adequate to the pangs to which thy treachery has eternally condemned me. Oh! Lope! Lope! why didst thou not take from me this wretched life when I was no longer dear to thy heart? I should then have been happy!—Thou didst not—but cruelly left me to the mercy of strangers, when I had none to look upon in life but thee."
All the feelings of an injured, yet fond woman now flowed uncontrolled over that heart where the stormy passions had raged before. She sobbed convulsively, and a shower of tears relieved her breaking bosom. Her weeping countenance was upon her lover's breast, and as he contemplated her deep anguish, and the wreck of those charms which, but for him, had still shone in their native grace, a ray of pity dawned upon his heart, callous as he was. There was something so peculiarly distressing in the situation of the unfortunate girl, that all the glowing considerations of ambition faded for a moment from his view, and his senses were alive only to more humane sentiments.
Gomez Arias no longer loved Theodora; but still when he saw the extent of her misery, and felt her warm tears inundating his bosom, pity partially supplied the place of his departed affection. He took the passive hand of Theodora, and gently pressed it between his own—and happy—happy was at that moment his innocent victim at this solitary mark of kindness. It was like a healing balm to her lacerated soul; but too soon she discovered—for what, alas! can escape the acute penetration of a loving woman—she soon discovered that pity alone suggested the consoling token—pity which might alike have been excited by any other object of distress; and, oh! how little does the sedate voice of pity satisfy the craving bosom of one who had such claims to command unbounded love!
Theodora fixed her eyes on her lover, not in anger but in sorrow, and, in a thrilling and piteous voice, she exclaimed—
"I know you no longer love me; but, Oh! heavens! have I deserved this from you, Lope? Your vows I will not recall, for who can forget them? They are deeply engraven in my heart, and I believed them true,—I loved you, Lope—Oh! I loved you as never woman loved before, and how was such affection requited? Alas! had I suffered the most terrible of deaths, it had been kind compared with thy desertion."
"Yes, Theodora," said Gomez Arias, "your reproaches are just; for well I deserve the most bitter that language can invent; but I was compelled to that necessity by obligations so imperative, so sacred, that they may serve to explain, and perhaps, in some measure, to extenuate the disgrace, which my heart tells me I have so justly incurred."
"Oh!" cried Theodora, "could aught in earth oblige you to abandon one linked to you by the dearest of ties?"