I am. You must not think I have used any arts--that I have laid any
plans for your destruction. Yes; it is true that I have been guilty of
an atrocious crime, but an unpremeditated one; a crime inspired,
perhaps, by the spirit of evil that possesses me. Do not abandon
yourself to despair, do not torture yourself, for God's sake! You are
responsible for nothing. It was a frenzy, a madness that took possession
of your noble spirit. Your sin is a light one; mine is flagrant,
shameful, horrible. Now I am less worthy of you than ever. It is I who
ask you now to leave this place. Go; do penance. God will pardon you.
Go; a priest will give you absolution. Once cleansed from sin, carry out
your purpose, and become a minister of the Most High. Then, through the
holiness of your life, through your ceaseless labors, not only will you
efface from your soul the last traces of this fall, but you will obtain
for me, when you have pardoned me the evil I have done you, the pardon
of Heaven also. You are bound to me by no tie, and even if you were I
should loosen or break it. You are free. Let it suffice me that I have
taken captive by surprise the star of the morning. It is not my
desire--I neither can nor ought to seek to keep him in my power. I
divine it, I read it in your gesture, I am convinced of it--you despise
me more than before; and you are right in despising me. There is neither
honor, nor virtue, nor shame in me."

When she had thus spoken, Pepita, throwing herself on her knees, bowed
her face till her forehead touched the floor. Don Luis continued in the
same attitude as before. Thus, for some moments, they remained both
silent with the silence of despair.

In a stifled voice, and without raising her face from the floor, Pepita
after a time continued:

"Go now, Don Luis, and do not, through an insulting pity, remain any
longer at the side of so despicable a wretch as I. I shall have courage
to bear your indifference, your forgetfulness, your contempt, for I have
deserved them all. I shall always be your slave--but far from you, very
far from you, in order that nothing may recall to your memory the
infamy of this night."

Pepita's voice, as she ended, was choked with sobs.

Don Luis could restrain himself no longer. He arose, approached Pepita,
and, raising her in his arms from the floor, pressed her to his heart;
then, putting aside from her face the blond tresses that fell in
disorder over it, he covered it with passio