“The mere loss of fortune I could, as far as I am individually concerned, have borne with fortitude, but that it casts a cloud over the last days of my father’s life, and that it deprives me of the last chance of gaining Donna Clara.”
“But is your father’s property so irretrievably involved, that you may not hope to recover it?” asked the Captain.
“So Father Jacinto, my cousin, informs me, the mercantile house in which the whole of my father’s monied property was placed having completely failed, and the estates being mortgaged to their full value.—No, alas! I see no chance of ever being able to recover what we have lost; and with me, I fear, our once high name must end.”
“Don’t think of such a thing. When you least expect it, Fortune’s wheel will turn up a prize, and you will find yourself prosperous and happy. You do not mean to become a friar, I hope? You were fitted for nobler aims than such a life can offer.”
“I must visit my father,—I fear it will be but to close his eyes,—before I fix on my future course in life, though surely anything is preferable to hanging about the Court, a poverty-stricken noble, in greedy expectation of some paltry office, cringing meanly to those one despises, to obtain it, as is the fate of many, and would be mine also if I could submit to it; but that I never can. No, I would far rather sink my rank and name, and be forgotten by the world, than lead such a life.”
“You are right, Luis, anything is better than that contemptible hunting after place, in which so many men waste their energies; but you need not be reduced to that necessity,—the Minister will gladly give you employment whenever you ask for it, as he has already promised you, and he is not a man to forget his word.”
“That was when fortune appeared to smile on me, and I was not a suppliant for charity. You yourself have often told me that people are far more ready to bestow gifts on those who do not ask for them, than on those who are petitioners.”
“With people in general, such is the case,” replied the Captain; “but the Minister is not to be judged by the same rules as other men: besides, you have other powerful friends, whom you are not aware of, but who would be the last people to wish you to enter the profession of the Church—with due reverence be it spoken. Should you be deprived of your natural counsellor,—your father, do not take any step without consulting one in whose judgment you may place the fullest confidence,—I mean, Senhor Mendez. You will always hear of him at the house where he is now residing, and he will ever be ready to advise you. Do not act like some foolish people, who fancy that it betrays a weakness of judgment to ask advice, whereas another person, of even inferior capacity, may often, from viewing a case calmly and dispassionately, be able to form a better opinion than he who, having to act, is naturally biassed according to his feelings at the time. You will think me an old proser if I continue talking much longer; and, at all events, your servant and horses are impatient to be off, so once again, Luis, farewell.”
The friends embracing affectionately, Luis mounted his horse with a sad heart, and turned his back once more on all the horrors and miseries with which for the last few weeks he had been surrounded. He had, in despair, been obliged to give up his search for the younger Gonçalo Christovaö, not being able to discover the slightest trace of him, so that at last he felt convinced that he must have been one of the sufferers in the earthquake.
The fidalgo had recovered his strength, and a few days before had set off on his return to Oporto, accompanied by his daughter, and his confessor, who did not cease to insist on his fulfilling his vow of placing the fair girl in a convent; and it was at last agreed that she should enter the principal one in that city. Clara, broken-hearted and despairing, offered no opposition to the proposed plan, so that it was arranged she should commence her noviciate soon after her return home,—her younger brother, who had been before destined for the Church, being taken from Coimbra, where he was pursuing his studies, little thought of or cared about, to be treated henceforth as the heir of the house.