said to me, that anger may be called the worst of the passions, since,
suddenly transforming the character, it engenders all the others, and
lends to each its own infernal fire.

"But it is not anger alone that has brought me to the state of mind
which I have described. A more expansive and noble sentiment--the
profound and ardent love which I have for my cousin, has also
contributed to it, and this is the one thing that absolves me in my own
estimation. But if love had not done so, pity would have impelled me
to brave the fury and the intrigues of your terrible sister; for poor
Rosario, placed between an irresistible affection and her mother, is
at the present moment one of the most unhappy beings on the face of the
earth. The love which she has for me, and which responds to mine--does
it not give me the right to open, in whatever way I can, the doors of
her house and take her out of it; employing the law, as far as the law
reaches, and using force at the point where the law ceases to support
me? I think that your rigid moral scrupulosity will not give an
affirmative answer to this question; but I have ceased to be the upright
and methodical character whose conscience was in exact conformity with
the dictates of the moral law. I am no longer the man whom an almost
perfect education enabled to keep his emotions under strict control.
To-day I am a man like other men; at a single step I have crossed the
line which separates the just and the good from the unjust and the
wicked. Prepare yourself to hear of some dreadful act committed by me. I
will take care to notify you of all my misdeeds.

"But the confession of my faults will not relieve me from the
responsibility of the serious occurrences which have taken place and
which are taking place, nor will this responsibility, no matter how
much I may argue, fall altogether on your sister. Dona Perfecta's