"It was the consequence of former guilt," replied Don Lope. "Theodora, I will deal frankly by you,—nay tremble not at the intelligence which I must disclose, for it is now imperiously required.—Curse me, Theodora," he then added with emotion, "curse the man who has accomplished your ruin. When I courted your affections; when I sought your innocent caresses, then—then, alas! I was the betrayer; for it was then that I deceived your unsuspecting heart."
"Oh! Heavens!" shrieked Theodora, "you never loved me then!"
"Yes, I adored you,—I loved you truly,—passionately, but it was my very love that wrought this misery. I had no strength to reveal the terrible secret: I became selfish and ungenerous; for when I breathed to your innocent ear the vows of everlasting affection, when you repaid my profession with undisguised, pure, and disinterested love, even at that time, my hand, my faith, were sacredly pledged to another."
Theodora hid her face in agony, and wrung her hands in despair, but she could not speak; her heart was full even to breaking, and it was with a severe struggle that she faintly pronounced "Leonor!"
"It is too true," replied Gomez Arias. "Previous to my arrival at Guadix, and my acquaintance with you, my honor was bound to the daughter of Aguilar by indissoluble ties; we were betrothed, and on the point of being united, when an untoward accident drove me from Granada to avoid the vengeance of the friends of my discarded rival Don Rodrigo de Cespedes. Misguided by the fever of passion, I forgot my sacred obligations to Leonor. You have already but too dreadfully suffered, and a repetition of such scenes must necessarily increase the anguish of your situation."
This recital threw the hapless daughter of Monteblanco into that exquisite agony which falls to the lot of woman alone to feel: for man, far happier in the diversity of his pursuits; less susceptible in the refinement of sensibility; more divided in his intercourse with society, can never experience that poignancy of feeling excited by shame and disappointed love, which exert their baneful influence over the heart of forsaken woman!
Theodora answered not her lover; there was something so atrocious in his recital, that in spite of the palliation which a fond woman, even when most injured, is anxious to find for the man who has wronged her, she could not cast a shade over the glaring colours in which Don Lope's treachery was depicted: she recoiled from him with a feeling of apprehension, and her countenance assumed a deadly hue as she fearfully exclaimed—
"And you left me then to perish in the mountains?"
"No, Theodora," eagerly cried Gomez Arias; "no! such intentions never entered my mind; of that at least I am innocent: it was my purpose to have placed you in a convent, and I availed myself of your sleep to spare you the pangs of a separation. Having instructed Roque how to act, I proceeded onwards to make the necessary arrangements for your reception in the religious asylum the Moors surprised you; Roque fled: of the rest I am ignorant, and how I find you here is more than imagination can conceive."
"I came," said Theodora, bitterly—"I came to be a witness of your joyful wedding: it is to be celebrated to-morrow, and I am yet in time."