Whilst Baltasar was speaking, Doña Carmen remained with her brow supported on her hand, silent and sunk in reflection. She now sprang impetuously from her chair.
"I will have naught to do with it," cried she; "you would entangle me in a labyrinth of crime, whence the only issue would be ignominy and punishment. You must find others to aid you in your machinations."
In his turn Baltasar rose from his seat, and, approaching the abbess, led her back to her chair.
"Carmen," said he, in a suppressed voice, and from between his set teeth, "is it to me that you say 'I will not?'—Carmen," he continued, speaking low, and with his face very near to hers, "there was a time when, for love of you and to do your bidding, I feared no punishment here or hereafter. Have you already forgotten it? 'I hate him,' were your words, as I sat at your feet in yon sunny Andalusian bower—'I hate him, and in proportion to my hatred should be my gratitude to him who rid me of his odious presence.' That night the serenos found the body of Don Fernando de Forcadell stiff and cold upon the steps of his villa. He had had a dispute at the monté table, and two men were sent to Ceuta on suspicion of the deed. Only two persons knew who had really done it. Ha! Carmen, only two persons!"
During this terrible recapitulation, the abbess sat motionless as a statue, for which indeed, in her white robe and with her marble pale complexion, she might almost have been taken. She covered her face with her hands, and her bosom heaved so violently, that the loose folds of drapery which shrouded it rose and fell like the waves of a troubled ocean. When Baltasar ceased speaking she removed her hands, and exhibited a countenance livid as that of a corpse. Her almost preternatural paleness, the dark furrows under her eyes, and the tension of every feature, added ten years to her apparent age.
"Is that all?" she said, in a hollow voice, to her tormentor.
"And one of those persons," resumed the pitiless Baltasar, without replying to her question, "swore by earth and by heaven, and by the God who made them both, never to forget the service that I—that the other person, I would say—had rendered her, and to be ready to requite it whenever he should point out the way. Years have flown by since that day, and the feelings that united those two persons have long since changed; but a promise made as that one was—a promise sealed with blood—can never pass away till it has been redeemed. Carmen, I claim its fulfilment."
Baltasar paused. "Fiend!" exclaimed the abbess, "what would you of me?"
"I have already told you," said Villabuena. "It is no crime, nothing that need alarm your conscience, recently grown so tender; but a good deed, rather, since it will prevent the daughter of a noble house from throwing herself away on an adventurer and a rebel, and give her hand to him for whom her father destined it. She is as yet unaware of the Count's death. She will learn it here, and no place fitter. Your pious consolations will soothe her grief. I shall leave her in your guardianship, and, when the first violence of her sorrow is over, return, to find means of overcoming her puerile objections to my suit. But I am a fool," exclaimed he, interrupting himself, "to lose in idle talk time that is so precious! They must already be in sight of the convent. Lead me to a window whence we may observe their approach, and whilst watching for it we can make our final arrangements."
He took the hand of the abbess, and she led the way, mechanically, to the door of an inner room. Passing through two other apartments, they reached one at the extremity of the wing, from the window of which a view was obtained for a considerable distance down the valley. The prospect that presented itself to them on pausing before this window, was so enchantingly beautiful, that it seemed to produce an effect, and to exercise a softening influence, even upon the depraved and vicious nature of Don Baltasar. At any rate, a full minute elapsed during which he stood in silence and contemplation.