in possession of all the information which Barnard might
possess, and which the Spaniard might wish to learn; but these
objections had not much weight with me. To the first, I said inly, "I
will oppose the most constant caution; I will go always on foot and
alone; I will never be seen in the town itself; and even should the
Spaniard, who seems rarely to stir abroad, and who, possibly, does not
speak our language,--even should he learn by accident that Barnard is
only another name for Aubrey Devereux, it will not be before I have
gained my object; nor, perhaps, before the time when I myself may wish
to acknowledge my identity." To the second objection I saw a yet more
ready answer. "I will acquaint Montreuil at once," I said, "with my
intention; I will claim his connivance as a proof of his confidence, and
as an essay of my own genius of intrigue." I did so; the priest, perhaps
delighted to involve me so deeply, and to find me so ardent in his
project, consented. Fortunately, as I before said, Barnard was an
underling,--young, unknown, and obscure. My youth, therefore, was not
so great a foe to my assumed disguise as it might otherwise have been.
Montreuil supplied all requisite information. I tried (for the first
time, with a beating heart and a tremulous voice) the imposition! it
succeeded; I continued it. Yes, Morton, yes!--pour forth upon me your
bitterest execration, in me, in your brother, in the brother so dear
to you,--in the brother whom you imagined so passionless, so pure; so
sinless,--behold that Barnard, the lover, the idolatrous lover--the foe,
the deadly foe,--of Isora d'Alvarez!

Here the manuscript was defaced for some pages by incoherent and
meaningless ravings. It seemed as if one of his dark fits of frenzy had
at that time come over the writer. At length, in a more firm and clear
character than that immediately preceding it, the manuscript continued
as follows:--

I loved her, but even then it was with a fierce and ominous love
(ominous of what it became). Often in the still evenings, when we stood
together watching the sun set; when my tongue trembled, but did not
dare to speak; when all soft and sweet thoughts filled the heart and
glistened in the eye of that most sensitive and fairy being; when my own
brow perhaps seemed to reflect the same emotions,--feelings which I even
shuddered to conceive raged within me. Had we stood together in those
moments upon the brink of a precipice, I could have