tenderest accents to confide in her, as he had ever done, since her
mother's death, to tell her what so pained him--might she not remove
it? Henriquez could not resist that fond yet mournful pleading. He
told her, that he felt health was departing, that death seemed ever
hovering near, but that its pain, its care, would all depart, could he
behold his long-cherished wish fulfilled, and his Marie the wife
of Ferdinand, whose every look and tone during his last visit had
betrayed his devoted love.

Marie heard; and her cheek and lips blanched to such ashy whiteness,
that her father in alarm folded her to his breast; and sought to
soothe a grief, which he believed was occasioned merely by the sudden
and fearful thought of his approaching death; and sought to soothe,
by a reference to the endearing love, the cherished tenderness which
would still be hers; how Ferdinand would be to her all, aye more
than all that he had been, and how, with love like his, she would be
happier than she had been yet. Much he said, and he might have said
still more, for it was long ere the startled girl could interrupt him.
But when he conjured her to speak to him, not to look upon his death
so fearfully, the beautiful truth of her nature rose up against the
involuntary deceit. It was not his death which thus appalled her;
alas--alas!--and she hated herself for the fearful thought--she had
almost lost sight of that, in the words which followed. Breaking from
his embrace, she sunk down on her knees before him, and buying her
face upon his hand, in broken accents and with choking sobs, revealed
the whole. How could she do her noble kinsman such fearful wrong as
to wed him, when her whole heart, thoughts, nay, life itself, seemed
wrapt in the memory of another? And that other! Oh! who, what was
he? Once she looked up in her father's face, but so fearful were the
emotions written there--wrath struggling with love, grief, pity,