st inevitable journey. I beseech
you then, for the love of heaven, for your own honour, and for my sake,
to whom you owe more than to all the world, receive me at once as your
lawful wife, not leaving it to the law to do what you have so many
righteous motives for doing of your own accord."

Here Leocadia ceased speaking. All present had listened to her in
profound silence, and in the same way they awaited the reply of Marco
Antonio. "I cannot deny, senora," he said, "that I know you; your voice
and your face will not suffer me to do that. Nor yet can I deny how much
I owe to you, nor the great worth of your parents and your own
incomparable modesty and virtue. I do not, and never shall, think
lightly of you for what you have done in coming to seek me in such a
disguise; on the contrary, I shall always esteem you for it in the
highest degree. But since, as you say, I am so near my end, I desire to
make known to you a truth, the knowledge of which, if it be unpleasant
to you now, may hereafter be useful to you.

"I confess, fair Leocadia, that I loved you, and you loved me; and yet I
confess also that my written promise was given more in compliance with
your desire than my own; for before I had long signed it my heart was
captivated by a lady named Teodosia, whom you know, and whose parentage
is as noble as your own. If I gave you a promise signed with my hand, to
her I gave that hand itself in so unequivocal a manner that it is
impossible for me to bestow it on any other person in the world. My
amour with you was but a pastime from which I culled only some flowers,
leaving you nothing the worse; from her I obtained the consummate fruit
of love upon my plighted faith to be her husband. That I afterwards
deserted you both was the inconsiderate act of a young man who thought
that all such things were of little importance, and might be done
without scruple. My intention was to go to Italy, and after spending
some of the years of my youth there, to return and see what had become
of you and my real wife; but Heaven in its mercy, as I truly believe,
has permitted me to be brought to the state in which you see me, in
order that in thus confessing my great faults, I may fulfil my last duty
in this world, by leaving you disabused and free, and ratifying on my
deathbed the pledge I gave to Teodosia. If there is anything, senora
Leocadia, in which I can serve you during the short time that remains to
me, let me know it; so it be n