Theodora started at the proposition. She fixed her eyes on Gomez Arias, and with a deep but tranquil anguish exclaimed—"Alas, Don Lope! Is this the remedy you propose? Can you indeed tempt me to abandon my father in his declining years, to regret and shame?"
"You had already determined to abandon him," observed Gomez Arias.
"No, Lope," she replied; "by that step, I should only disappoint him in his expectations—not incur his merited hatred and malediction;—his grief would be tempered by resignation, not corroded with the sting of shame." "Don Lope," she then continued with dignity, "command my life; but oh! never, never require of me the commission of a crime, as the proof of my love."
"Stay, Theodora," interrupted Gomez Arias, with a composure that ill agreed with the terrific cloud gathering on his brow; "stay, you are right, and I must retract my words: the offer was dictated in the transports of sincere and ardent love, and as the only means left us in the hour of danger. But I perceive that I have mistaken your sentiments; such actions were only made for souls capable of feeling and appreciating the extent of a true passion; not for cold and timorous beings like yourself. I flattered my fond pride, that in you I had met with a miracle of deep and all-absorbing affection, but I am deceived, and sorely shall I repent my delusion; I now see you in your true colours; you are like the rest of your feeble sex, pleased with the gratification of their vanity, but incapable of a bold and generous resolution in favor of the man they pretend to love. I will not upbraid you; but from this moment cast you from me as a piece of inanimate clay, a painted thing, alike incapable of estimating and sharing my regard."
Saying this he rudely disengaged himself from her arms, whilst the unfortunate Theodora, affrighted at the violence of his manner, fixed on him a wild and vacant stare, the intensity of her grief depriving her of the power of reflection. But when she saw her lover actually receding from the place, her mind started from its abstraction, and her thoughts were fixed upon the dreadful desertion that now threatened her. She gave a frantic shriek, and fell lifeless on the ground.
Alarmed at the effect produced by his passionate and cruel proceeding, Gomez Arias hurried back to the spot, and raising the lovely victim from the ground, gazed on her with all the anxiety of returning affection. Theodora was in his arms, but, alas! her beautiful eyes were closed, her cheek was colourless, and a cold suffusion bathed her stiffened limbs. The vital spark had apparently deserted its frail tenement, for no sign of conscious life was there. Don Lope's angry feelings had given way to his fears for her safety, and as he wiped the cold dew from her face, he perceived blood trickling slowly down her marble brow. In the violence of her fall upon the gravelled walk, a flint had wounded her forehead, and the crimson drops that issued from it contrasted mournfully with the frozen paleness of her countenance.
Gomez Arias was moved as he gazed intensely on the angelic creature now before him. This was no artful fiction, no solemn mockery of woe: a few words had worked that dreadful revolution in her mind. Perhaps there is at times an indescribable cruelty in love that prompts a man, in a certain degree, to enjoy the misery which is wrought by an excess of affection towards him, and triumph now mingled with compassion in the abandoned lover's heart. He was, however, soon called to more generous sentiments. Anxiety and regret took place of vanity, while his passion for Theodora acquired new intensity as he scanned her beauteous figure and contemplated the distress he had occasioned. With the most endearing efforts he endeavoured to reanimate the lifeless form of Theodora. He ardently pressed the yielding burthen to his heart, placed his glowing cheek by the cold one of his mistress, fervently kissed the crimson stain upon her forehead, and then bound it with a scarf.
Theodora, however, for some time gave no sign of life. Don Lope called her by the most tender names, sprinkled her face with the water of a neighbouring fountain, and exhausted himself in efforts to revive her. At last she gently opened her eyes, a scarce perceptible motion shook her frame, and shortly after she raised her white fingers to her forehead, as if conscious of sensation. She heaved a deep sigh, and Gomez Arias watching with anxious gaze the progress of her reviving senses, strove with soothing fondness to hasten their return. Her eyes gently opened, and a sad smile played upon her lip, as she acknowledged the tender solicitude of her lover, unable as yet to express herself by words.
"Theodora, my dearest, don't you know me?"
Her abstracted senses awoke as if from a horrid dream, and with fearful and convulsive clasp she hung to Don Lope's neck.