S.: You, guilty——?
B.: Just the same!—What am I, here?—When I am alone no one beholds me, but I would even hide me from myself.—If, in snatching me from my home, you have taken advantage of my love, do not sport with my weakness.
S.: Blanca, God reads our hearts——
B.: Yes, and because God reads them, I implore you, once for all, to end this situation. What is past is as the image of a fearful dream.—To have dreamed it alone had seemed to me impossible. Cruel! this is very cruel!—Your very presence is enough to humiliate me—and I could not live without your presence!—I would desire that looking at you my heart should beat with joy. I wish to feel that which I have always felt at seeing you! that which I felt before!—Why turn your face away? Why does your stern and sombre glance uneasily conceal itself beneath your lids, and why do you not look at me as heretofore?
S.: Blanca, you suspect——
B.: No, I do not suspect; I believe. I confess it frankly.... Love is born and grows slowly, but it may die in a single instant!—Mine is the guilt.
S.: Cease.—Do you not see that you are lacerating my soul?
B.: Listen! At night you slept—I watched! I shuddered, for presently I heard your voice, as if distant, broken and tremulous—you were speaking as if an enormous rock weighed down upon your breast——
S.: You are right—it was so——!
B.: You uttered crushing words,—words of vengeance—of dishonor—of love!