"Nay, why seek to dissemble? Do you think I have not read your shallow secret from the very first? You sought to blind and hoodwink me, but I laughed at the pitiful deception. Paul, tell me, is this love a lasting one?"
"Since you know my secret," replied the Mexican, "concealment is useless. It is a lasting love—eternal as yonder blue heaven."
"Foolish boy. Then ruin and destruction will track your footsteps."
"Ruin! Through my love?"
"Yes; you have not one friend in this house, save her who now speaks to you. Camillia loves you, you will answer! Yes; but with the feeble passion of a capricious beauty, which may change with to-morrow's sun. How long, think you, will her love endure when she hears every creature in New Orleans brand you as a thief and ingrate? Will it outlast the hour when she sees you placed in a criminal dock, side by side, with the lowest thief in the city? Will it survive degradation and shame? No; Camillia Moraquitos is proud, and from the hour that you leave this house with the clanking fetters on your wrists, she will despise and hate you—hate you for the very memory of her past love."
Paul Lisimon knew the pride which formed the leading principle in Camillia's character, and he felt that there might be truth in these bitter words.
"Oh, Heaven," he cried, "this is indeed terrible!"
"Hear me, Paul. It is in my power to save you from these fetters and this shame. It is in my power to bring Silas Craig and his haughty employer, Don Juan Moraquitos, groveling to your feet to implore you for mercy—to entreat your forbearance to save them from the fate of a felon."
"You are mad!" exclaimed Paul. "What in mercy's name mean you by these words?"
"Listen to me, Paul Lisimon, for these few minutes, bought from the vigilance of the officer without yonder door, must decide the fate of both of us. Thirteen years ago, Don Tomaso Crivelli expired in the arms of his brother-in-law, in an apartment at the end of the gallery outside this door. You have often been in that room."