Chapter XIV: The Capitulation

Josefina was wasting away. Her cheeks were as pale as wax; there was constantly a look of terror in her sweet, gentle eyes, around which suffering had traced a purple circle. She spoke little, and never laughed. When she was left in peace she sat in some corner, and remained motionless looking at one spot, or she went to the window and wrote on the panes of the glass with her finger.

Sometimes, in spite of such misery, the childish nature asserted itself. If the cat approached her slowly with his tail in the air, his back arched, soliciting a caress with a weak purr, she would throw herself upon the ground, call him, drag him to her, stroke his fur, scratch his head, tickle the back of his neck, and murmur words of affection in his ear, a course of spoiling that the animal received with transports of delight.

"I love you, I love you. You are my good cat. Are you not good? You must not scratch me as you did. Who do you like best in the house? Say, treasure. Who gave you a sardine yesterday? Who puts you a saucer of milk every day? And if I could always give you fish too, I would, because I know it is what you like best. Is it not, my treasure? But you must not steal or you know you will be beaten. Don't get on Manin's bed and be naughty or you will be killed. I heard so the other day in the kitchen. And catch a lot of mice, so that godmother will like you and will not turn you out."

The cat, delighted, purred from the depths of his throat with pleasure, and rubbed himself more and more vehemently against her. The child held him up to her mouth, put her arms around him, pressed him to her heart, kissed him, and sometimes, forgetting her sufferings, she shed tears of tenderness. But any noise in the next room made her jump up with terror in her eyes, she pushed the cat away from her and stood motionless, waiting for what was to come, and it was almost always some cruel punishment.

"You naughty girl! So you dirty your clothes like that crawling about on the floor! Wait a bit! wait a bit!"

Continual shocks had so upset her constitution that her health was quite out of order. But although it was not her fault she was treated as if it were, and once Concha's fury was so great that she seized her by the ears and made her lick the ground.

The most terrible hour for the little creature was lesson time. Amalia gave her early in the morning long pieces of sacred history and grammar to learn. Josefina retired to a corner and made desperate efforts to commit them to memory. A little before the dinner hour Concha, who was deputed for the task, took a chair, drew out the famous whalebone, and with that in one hand, and the book in the other, she commenced her pedagogic functions. Every time the child hesitated or forgot a word, it cost her a blow from the whalebone on her face, hand, or neck; and as her memory was not very strong the pounding was incessant.

It was still worse when her godmother taught her. Concha was coldly cruel, but Amalia became irritable directly; the crying of the child worried her nerves, she flew into a rage like a hungry panther, and finished by striking her frantically until she fell trembling and bleeding at her feet.

Her hatred to the little creature seemed increased if possible after the letter from the count. Her pride, wounded to the quick by the cold, self-sufficient, insulting diplomacy conveyed to her mind by the words of her old love, she vented her rage upon the daughter. Besides, the idea of Luis being distressed at hearing of the tortures was an additional inducement to continue them unsparingly. Let her suffer! let him suffer! the vile, perfidious creature who had taken her youth, and then when she was old cast her from him like an old rag to be swept away.

On one of these days of intense raging anger the life of Josefina was in imminent danger. At the usual hour she had been summoned to the dining-room for her lessons. Concha took a seat and drew with unfeigned delight the fatal whalebone from her bosom, for the administration of blows seemed a physical pleasure that day. Trembling as usual the child came and gave her the books, and then with stammering tongue began saying a chapter of sacred history, when Manin's entrance interrupted them. He came in with his eternal green jacket, short breeches and rough manners, making the floor tremble under his hobnailed boots. It was this costume, which even in the country was out of date, that chiefly gave rise to the notoriety and fame he had been supposed to have as a formidable bear-hunter. He entered with his head down as usual; he peered in at the door, saying:

"Concha, haven't you anything to eat here?"

"Is your stomach so empty, Manin?" returned the needlewoman laughing.

The peasant opened his mouth wide to join in the laugh.

"Yes, God have mercy! I can't wait a minute more. You all seem barefooted Brothers in this house; you have no thought of food till the time comes."

"Well, come along you great greedy creature," said Concha putting the book and whalebone on the chair, and going in a petulant way to the dresser.

They quite understood each other these two. The needlewoman was hard, cruel, and stubborn, but the majordomo knew how to get at the few grains of good humour she had. He teased her unmercifully, he pinched her when she passed by him, and said a thousand coarse, shameless things to her which she knew how to take in the opposite sense. And the dwarfish maid, who was neither kind nor pretty, and whose cruel nature had choked every germ of pleasantness and transformed her into a priestess of misery, a fatal, pitiless Eumenide, was pleasant and obliging to that brute. She admired his bearish manners, his roughness, his greediness, and his insolent, careless way of treating everybody, including the pompous Senor de Quinones. Manin was a solemn-faced rogue with his shameful rudeness, his deportment of a brave hunter of wild beasts. Sly-faced rogue! for with all his shameless rudeness, his posing as a hunter of wild beasts, and his slovenly dress, he had known how to take life easily in this world without spoiling his hands, nor hurting his back by hard work in his village. The needlewoman fetched a plate of cold meat and put it on the oilcloth of the table without any apology for a serviette; then she cut half a loaf and left him with the indispensable bottle of white wine and a glass by the side of the meat. Concha then re-seated herself, and the child approaching repeated the words that she had just said. In a few moments, zas! a blow with the whalebone and a cry of pain. Immediately afterwards another blow and another cry, and so it went on. The needlewoman was delighted that she stumbled more than usual. Manin devoured his food in silence, only occasionally turning his head with marked indifference towards the sad scene. Soon he began murmuring at every blow like a machine:

"Give it! Go it! That was good! There's a blow!" and other similar exclamations.

The sacred history lesson came to an end, and there was a respite before taking the grammar, when the maid began joking cheerfully with the majordomo. She was in an angelic humour.

"Did you ever see such meat?"

"Fine, truely fine."

"The worst of it is it will spoil your appetite for dinner."

Whereupon the room then vibrated with the fellow's laughter.

"This? Yes! It would be something for me to lose my appetite. You will have to put a hot iron in the water, like you do for the senora."

"I would put it on your body, you great pig."

"Look here, Concha, none of your teasing; because although you are only a little bit of a thing, and you have roguish eyes and a mouth like a cherry, you shall have such a blow one of these days, without your knowing whence it comes, that all that little row of pearls I see now shall be knocked down your throat."

"Silence! silence, you old clod-hopper; you are a fine one for blows. You couldn't give them if you tried in such a tight costume. You are indeed a fright."

"You are not saying this from your heart, but because you think it fine."

"I know very well that there is a good deal behind all that. (And here he gave her a few rough digs in the ribs). If I could catch you in a maize field!"

"It would only be as if you caught me in the market-place. No; you are nothing but jaw and tongue."

"And hands too to touch what is nice," returned the barbarian, taking hold of the needlewoman's chin with his hand.

"Leave go! leave go, you pig!" And she gave him a blow on the fingers with the whalebone. Then the rude fellow caught hold of her again, and she defended herself again in the same way. He then tried to get hold of her waist, whereupon the maid ran across the room pretending to be angry.

"Don't touch me, Manin, or I will call the senora."

But Manin did not care; he ran after her with grunts and laughter, catching hold of her here and seizing her there, whilst his cheeks, which were as hard and coarse as an elephant's hide, came in for blows from the servant, without showing that he felt them. The furniture was knocked about, the ground shook, the plates rang on the dresser, and still he did not give in, but he grew more and more false and fawning. The rogue knew that, irascible and fiendish as the little woman was, she was open to flattery like all human beings, and that it was for the interest of his stomach to keep her in a good humour. Finally, roaring like a bull, he caught her by the waist and held her up in the air. He held her up without any effort, as if she were a three-year old child.

"Now, little spitfire, what do you say now? Where is your courage? Where are your hands? Come, witch, and ask pardon, or I will let you fall like a frog," roared the great bear, moving her to and fro in the air.

"Let me go, Manin! Let me go, ass! There will be a row! Look here, I shall scream!"

At last he put her down gently, and the maid, panting, dishevelled and frowning, so as to look more angry, said in an excited voice:

"You have no shame, Manin. If we were not in this house as we are I would smash this lamp on your face for your rudeness and insolence. But here are the servants listening to all this, and what will they say? Don't say another word, for I won't answer you."

"So you can scream now, vain little thing, after you have been in the seventh heaven," muttered Manin, in a drawling tone, looking at her angrily and pushing up his beard.

"If you don't get out of my sight, you ruffian!" exclaimed the little servant, as she looked at him with laughter in her eyes, in spite of herself.

Then Manin re-seated himself for the consumption of the rest of the bread, and to drink another glass of white wine. Josefina meanwhile sobbed in a corner, putting her wounded hands to her mouth and patting her cheeks, contused with the whalebone blows. Manin then deigned to cast a look at her.

"Don't cry, little fool, the pain of the blows will go by, and the sense will remain in your head for ever," he said, cutting a piece of bread with his clasp-knife and putting it into his mouth. "If you would like to know my opinion, the more they beat you, the more pleased you ought to be. What would you be if Concha was not kind enough to beat you well? A little ignoramus, not worth a measure of acorns, a little beast, God save the comparison. And now what will you be? As fine a woman as you can see." (He paused whilst he cut another piece of bread and chewed it so that it caused a large lump in his right cheek). "Come, if I had had masters like you have to bruise my skin with blows, I should not be an ass now; they would not call me Manin, but Don Manuel, and instead of being a miserable underling I should be going about giving myself airs, walking down Altavilla with my hands behind me like the senores, and reading the papers in the casinos." (Another pause, and another cutting of a hunch of bread). "It is nothing but just, if you will see it so. How can you learn such difficult things without a few whippings? Whoever learned _daque_ without being beaten? Nobody. Then if you get learning you should thank God for having put a mistress over you like an aureole. For the end will please you; you will have soft hands and delicate feet, is it not so?"

Concha, having now resumed her severe manner, seated herself and made an imperious gesture to the child to approach. It was the turn for grammar and it went worse than the history, either from want of memory or because she was upset by fear. Then the whipping recommenced; a whalebone blow now and then, then oftener and oftener. Manin, true to his pedagogical opinions, applauded with his mouth full, and cut his bread into wonderful geometrical shapes before conducting them with all solemnity to his mouth. The faults were many, the blows were the same. But at the end of the lesson Concha thought that besides the punishment at every fault there was a certain reparation due for general naughtiness, and so she had better conclude by a beating that would include everything. Therefore she jumped up from her chair, and brandishing the formidable whalebone, exclaimed:

"Now to make you study better and to open your mind! Now!"

The blows were so hard and so many that, trying to escape the torture, the little creature seized hold of the skirts of her torturer with her clenched hands. Without knowing how, perhaps through having carelessly caught hold of them, the string which held them broke and they fell off, leaving the needlewoman only in her undergarment. She gave a cry of shame and quickly pulled up the skirts. Then, without waiting to tie them on again, she cast a glance of the deepest anger at the child and left the room holding her things on with her hands.

"You have done it finely now--finely, finely, finely!" said Manin, dexterously cutting the mouthful he was about to raise to his lips.

The little creature paralysed with terror did not cry even; her wounds ceased to hurt her. At the end of a few minutes Concha reappeared accompanied by the senora, who came in with a sarcastic smile.

"It seems that the senorita takes pleasure now in unrobing girls in public. You like that, senorita, do you not? Manin must have had a nice view of Concha. Eh, Manin?"

She took a few steps forward. The child receded in dismay.

"Don't be afraid, senorita. I have not come to beat you. Who gives heed to whippings? I have only come to invite you to take a turn in the cellar--the cellar with the rats--you know it. There you can amuse yourself in undressing any rat of the many that will pay their respects to you. Come along. Give me your hand so that I can take you with all ceremony."

The child ran behind a chair, from whence, being pursued by Amalia and Concha, she got under the table, and finally took refuge behind the majordomo.

"Manin! Manin! For God's sake hide me!"

But he took her by the arm and handed her over to the senora. Then they each took a hand, and in spite of her piercing cries they dragged her off.

"To the cellar, no! to the cellar, no! Godmother, pardon. Kill me sooner. See what a terror I have. No, not to the cellar for the rats to eat me!"

The servants came out in the passage and assisted at the scene in solemn silence. The cries of the child were soon lost in descending the dark winding staircase leading to the underground cellar.

Amalia opened the door of the horrible place and pushed her daughter inside. She banged the door to, and the child running to get out, caught her hand in it. A fearful cry of pain was heard. The Valencian reopened the door, and gave such a rough push to the child that she was thrown on the ground, and then she turned the key.

The cellar was a dark, damp prison, only lightened by a few stray rays of light from an ox-eye above. It had once been used as a wine-cellar, now there were only empty bottles there. Scarcely was the child alone, when she got up, looked round mad with fright, tried to cry, but she was unable to utter, and finally, extending her hands in an excess of fearful trembling, she fell senseless to the ground. At the end of half an hour the stable-boy, who had witnessed the incarceration, came to the door being moved by compassion, and looked through the keyhole. There was nothing to be seen. He called very gently:

"Josefina."

The child did not reply. He called louder. The same silence. Alarmed, he called and knocked at the door with all his might without obtaining any reply. Then, at the risk of losing his place, he went quickly upstairs to say what had happened. Amalia sent Concha with the key to see what had occurred. Paula and she together carried the little creature upstairs senseless, cold, and with all the signs of death upon her face. Afraid of the complications that might arise, the wife of the Grandee put her quickly to bed, where she soon came to herself, but a serious fever immediately set in. The doctor was sent for. He found her very ill. To account for the injury of her hand and the contusions about her, Amalia, clever in lying, invented a story that the doctor believed, or pretended to believe. She hovered for some days between life and death. Amalia followed the course of the illness with anxious eyes. She was not unhappy at the thought of losing the being upon whom she had vented the bitter disappointment of her heart, but she was distressed at the idea of losing her revenge at one blow. When Josefina had been in bed three days, she heard that Fernanda had left for Madrid the previous evening in the postchaise, and that Luis would only be four or five days before joining her. This was a severe shock; a burning wave of bile inundated her heart, and that night she too had fever. So they were escaping! There would be no possible revenge for the traitor. He would go to Madrid; he would marry; he would perhaps have news there of his daughter's death, but the caresses of his adored bride would soon put it out of his mind. Of that long, ardent love affair there would be nothing left but a man parading his bliss through Europe, and a poor old sad woman in Lancia, a laughing-stock for the Lancian circles. Her flaccid flesh trembled. The revengeful instincts of her race cried out in futile rage. No, no, it could not be! She would sooner drag his dead daughter to his feet; she would sooner kill him with a stab in the heart!

A singular and terrible idea occurred to her--to tell her husband everything. She ignored what she would incur herself, but it would provoke an immediate scandal. Don Pedro was violent, and he enjoyed great power and prestige. Who could say the harm that such a bomb would cause? Certainly he was paralysed, and he could not take personal revenge; but would not that proud, punctilious man find means of repaying the injury that had been done him? She would come to grief herself, but she would willingly fall if the traitor paid for his treachery. After a long struggle with these thoughts she did not dare run the risk of making the confession by word of mouth, nor writing under her own name, but, disguising the handwriting, she wrote an anonymous letter:

"The child that you adopted six years ago is the daughter of your
wife and a gentleman who visits your house, whom you call your
friend. I do not tell you the name. Look for him, and you will soon
come across the traitor.

(Signed) A FAITHFUL FRIEND."

She posted the epistle and anxiously waited to see the effect.

Don Pedro received it in her presence and read it, whilst her face violently contracted and assumed a cadaverous pallor.

"Who writes to you?" she asked in a natural way.

The Grandee replied immediately, and folding and retaining the letter, he said, with some effort to control his voice that trembled:

"Nobody. One of the persons I recommended, complains that he has been kept waiting. This governor! He has nor memory, no regularity at all!"

Anxiously and restlessly awaiting the course of events, she retired to her boudoir. Jacoba came in the evening with an air of mystery and gave her a letter from the count.

"What does this man want with me?" she asked in a surprised, vexed tone.

"I don't know, senorita. He wrote the letter in my house, and is there waiting for the answer."

The count's letter ran thus:

"Amalia, I know that our child is in danger of death. By all that
you love best in the world, by the salvation of your soul, grant me
an interview. I must speak to you. If this evening it cannot be,
come to-morrow to Jacoba's house.

Yours, LUIS."

"Yours! yours!" she murmured with a bitter smile. "You have been mine, but you have changed your owner, and it will cost you dear."

"Shall I take the answer, senorita?"

She stood pensive for a few minutes, walked up and down the room completely absorbed in thought, went to the window and looked through the panes. Finally, half turning round, she said very abruptly:

"Very well; I will go to-morrow at the hour of Mass."

"He asked after the child with the greatest interest."

"Say that she is better."

The intermediary retired, and Amalia remained for a long time looking at the street through the window-panes without seeing it. From seven o'clock in the morning of the following day, Luis was waiting for her in Jacoba's little house. It only consisted of a kitchen on the ground-floor and a little bedroom upstairs, and both so low that the count's head, with his hat on, touched the ceiling. In this little room he was walking up and down with impatient steps, with his hands in his pockets looking cautiously every minute through the blinds of the only window there was. The lady did not arrive until nine o'clock. He saw her coming with her mantilla veiling her eyes, her missal in her hand, and her rosary hanging on her wrist, with a firm, self-assured step, as if she were coming to give orders to her old protegee. When he heard her voice in the kitchen his heart beat quickly, he began to tremble, and in his agitation he forgot all that he was going to say.

"How are you, count?" she said, with perfect naturalness as she came in and gave him her hand.

"Very well--and thou?"

She raised her head as if she were surprised to hear him _tutoyer_ her, and replied, as she looked at him fixedly:

"Perfectly."

"And the child?"

"Somewhat better."

The man's face brightened at hearing this news. A ray of happiness shone in his eyes, and taking the hand of his former lover, he led her to the poor, straw-stuffed sofa, and said:

"Let us sit down, Amalia. Although it may be a liberty on my part, I beg of you to let me go on _tutoyant_ you when we are alone. I do not forget, I never can forget, how many happy hours I owe you, and how much happiness you brought into my sad, monotonous life. You revealed to me all that was sweetest and best in my heart without my hardly suspecting it. All the first impulses of my soul were for you. Until now, you alone had penetrated it and sounded, and knew its melancholy, weakness, and tenderness. If I separate from you, it is only in obedience to a law of nature which impels us all to found a family. I have nobody in the world but my mother, who may soon leave me alone. You ought not to mind my wishing to make a home, and have an heir to my name and estates. Besides, my conscience rebukes me."

The count, delighted at the improvement of the child, was more expansive and loquacious than usual, being unable to hide his happiness, and thinking everything was arranged according to his wishes. Josefina was happy with her mother, he happy with Fernanda, and Amalia, being resigned, would grant him a sweet affection that would get purer every day.

She looked at him now with a certain quizzical curiosity.

When he had finished, she said, with a sarcastic smile:

"From the night you saw Fernanda in her splendid _recherche_ dress, this feeling of conscience must have been insupportable."

The count smiled too, somewhat shamefacedly.

"Don't believe it, Amalia. I have always felt remorse. Certainly, on getting old, one sees things more clearly. My beard is white in many places, as you can see. That which is excusable in a youth as wildness, as an irrepressible ebullition of vitality, becomes crime in an older person. Love at my age ought not to clip the wings of reason, and if it does, it merits the term of madness. My determination may be hard for both of us. It is very trying to me; it costs me a good deal to break loose from a _liaison_ that force of time has almost converted into a habit. Besides, unfortunately, there exists a bond between us which is impossible to break completely. Destiny has brought forth from the mire of our sin a beautiful blossom, a sweet white lily. Let us remove the stain from her brow, although she is the offspring of an unlawful passion, do not let us corrupt her with our blameworthy conduct. Let us make ourselves worthy of her by living like Christians."

"All this is very well, only I am sorry that this course of Christian doctrine has come so late, and so simultaneous with the arrival of your old _fiancee_ to the place, because it seems as if you had completely forgotten your catechism, until she came to refresh your memory. But, after all, it is not for me to interfere as it does not concern me. The gist of it all is that you are going to marry. You do well. Man is badly off alone, and when he finds a worthy companion like you have done, he ought not to lose the opportunity. Fernanda is a very good girl; I am sure that she will make you happy; you will have many sons, and after a long and happy life you will go to heaven."

This state of resignation surprised Luis and he could not help feeling somewhat taken aback.

"And you, too, will be happy?" he timidly asked.

"I? what does it signify if I am happy or unhappy?" she said, shrugging her shoulders disdainfully.

"Don't say that, Amalia! Happiness is not that madness to which we have given ourselves up these seven years. There is a taste of bitterness in that, which I have noticed for some time and which you will soon perceive. A pure, worthy life, a quiet conscience, and the esteem of honourable persons will give you more pleasure than criminal passion. Besides, you have what I have not; you have an angel with you, a fragrant, beautiful lily that will sweeten your existence."

"Ah, yes, Josefina! Really, so she is to be the one who is to afford me my only pleasant times in the future!"

This was said with such a strange inflexion of voice, so sharp and so strident that Luis shivered.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean what I say, that it is fortunate I have Josefina to cheer me."

"But you say it in such a strange way."

The Valencian then gave a curious forced laugh of sinister sound that came from the back of her throat.

Luis looked at her fixedly, getting more and more uneasy.

"But what a fool you are, Luis! How more than foolish! Egotism has so blinded your eyes that you cannot see what is before you. If you were twenty, this innocence might perhaps inspire me with pity, but at your age it only fills me with scorn and derision. To think that three or four insolent remarks on morality and conscience will suffice to make me contentedly accept the humiliation you impose upon me; to suppose that I, whom if you do not know, you ought to know, am going to consent to be cast away like an old rag, that I am to crawl like an enamoured slave at the feet of Fernanda, to serve her as a footstool when she mounts to her couch, is the height of stupidity and nonsense. Why don't you ask me to be bridesmaid at once?"

The count looked at her with dilated eyes full of anxiety and fear.

"So what I have heard of the tortures you have inflicted on our daughter is true?"

"Quite true! And you do not yet know all. Look here, I am going to tell you all, so that you may not say you are deceived."

Then, in a few incisive words, with a cruel satisfaction revealed in her voice, she put before him the fearful picture of the pain and misery suffered by the unhappy little creature during the last few months. The account was infinitely more shocking than the one Maria, the ironer, had given. The count, pale and overwhelmed, without making the slightest movement, looked the picture of despair. He soon covered his face with his hands, and so listened until the end.

"Oh, how infamous! oh, how infamous!" he groaned to himself.

"Yes, very infamous, but I hope to be more so. Have you heard all these infamies? Then they are nothing compared to what I shall do."

"You shall not do it, you wicked woman!" exclaimed Luis. "I would sooner strangle you with my own hands."

The Valencian rushed to the door.

"If you come a step nearer, I'll shriek!"

"Oh, infamous, infamous person!" exclaimed the count, again in a deep voice, "and God allows such monsters upon the earth!"

He took a few steps back and cast himself again upon the sofa. He rested his elbows on his knees, and put his head between his hands. After some time he raised it saying:

"Well, what do you exact from me?"

Amalia took a step towards him.

"That which you ought to expect, if you have any common sense left. I don't ask for our connection to continue, because at the pass we have come to it is not possible; it would be like giving the lie to love, and I have too much pride for that. But I do not want you or this woman to make me a laughing-stock; I am not going to be made a subject of derision to those who know of our connection: and those are all who visit at the house. I demand as the condition of the child being as she was, that you immediately break with Fernanda and think no more of her."

"But, Amalia," he exclaimed, in accents of misery, "you know quite well it is impossible; my wedding is fixed; all Lancia knows it. Fernanda is waiting for me in Madrid; only a few days are wanting----"

"And if only a minute were wanting, this wedding shall not take place. If you marry Fernanda the child shall pay for the offence in the way you know."

"Oh, I will prevent it. I will tell the authorities. I will ask for the care of the child."

"This is only talking for talking sake, Luis," replied Amalia, calm and smiling. "The authorities of Lancia are under the Quinones. Nobody would dare say a word against me."

"If I refer the whole matter to Don Pedro."

"He will not believe you, and if he did believe you, instead of impeding my revenge which is also his, he would help me."

A long silence then ensued. The count was plunged in thought with his hand pressed against his brow. Suddenly he rose hastily, and walked up and down the room in an agitated way.

"It cannot be! it cannot be!"

The Valencian followed him with her eyes. At last she said, as she walked to the door:

"Good-bye."

The count retained her with a gesture. "Stop."

Amalia stopped motionless, with her hand on the latch of the door as her piercing glance rested upon him.

The count went on walking for some time without paying any attention to her.

"Very well," he said, in a hoarse voice, stopping short, "the marriage shall not take place; you will tell me what I am to do."

His altered face evinced the calmness of despair.

"You will have to write a letter to Fernanda to bade her farewell."

"I will write it."

"Now, at once."

"Now, at once."

Amalia went to the stairs and asked Jacoba for a writing-case. As there was no table there, she put it on the chest of drawers. The count approached and began to write standing. Amalia approached too.

"This is what I want you to write to her."

It was the rough draft of the letter. The count cast his eye over it.

"My good friend Fernanda," it ran, "I wanted you to be away so as
to tell you in writing what would be beyond my powers to say to
you. I cannot be yours. It is not necessary to give you the reasons
because you will guess them. Would that I loved you enough to
ignore everything and fly with you! Unfortunately, or fortunately,
there are things that weigh on my heart more than love. Pardon me
for having deceived you and try to be happy as it is the wish of
your best friend.

"LUIS."

He traced the lines of this letter with a trembling hand, and before finishing it, tears rose to his eyes.