sdropper ever awake--without exciting suspicions
which would lead to the frustration of my designs, and perhaps involve
both myself and my brother in ruin? Then was it that an idea struck me
like a flash of lightning; and like a flash of lightning was it terrible
and appalling, when breaking on the dark chaos of my thoughts. At first
I shrank from it--recoiled from it in horror and dismay;--but the more I
considered it--the longer I looked that idea in the face--the more I
contemplated it, the less formidable did it seem. I have already said
that I was enthusiastic and devoted in my resolves to carry out the
dying injunctions of my mother:--and thus by degrees I learnt to reflect
upon the awful sacrifice which had suggested itself to my imagination as
a species of holy and necessary self-martyrdom. I foresaw that if I
affected the loss of hearing and speech, I should obtain all the
advantages I sought and all the means I required to enable me to act as
the protectress of my brother against the hatred of my father. I
believed also that I should not only be considered as unfit to be made
the heiress of the title and fortune of the Riverola family, but that
our father, Francisco, would see the absolute necessity of treating you
in all respects as his lawful and legitimate son, in spite of any
suspicions which he might entertain relative to your birth. There were
many other motives which influenced me, and which arose out of the
injunctions of our mother,--motives which you can well understand, and
which I need not detail. Thus it was that, subduing the grief which the
idea of making so tremendous a sacrifice excited, on the one hand--and
arming myself with the exultation of a martyr, on the other,--thus it
was that I resolved to simulate the character of the deaf and dumb. It
was, however, necessary to obtain the collusion of Dr. Duras; and this
aim I carried after many hours of argument and persuasion. He was then
ignorant--and still is ignorant--of the real motives which had prompted
me to this self-martyrdom;--but I led him to believe that the gravest
and most important family interests required that moral immolation of my
own happiness;--and I vowed that unless he would consent to aid me, it
was my firm resolve to shut myself up in a convent and take the veil.
This threat, which I had not the least design of carrying into effect,
induced him to yield a reluctant acquiescence with my project: for he
loved me as if I had b