wrought this misery. I had no strength to reveal the
terrible secret: I became selfish and ungenerous; for when I breathed to
your innocent ear the vows of everlasting affection, when you repaid my
profession with undisguised, pure, and disinterested love, even at that
time, my hand, my faith, were sacredly pledged to another."

Theodora hid her face in agony, and wrung her hands in despair, but she
could not speak; her heart was full even to breaking, and it was with a
severe struggle that she faintly pronounced "Leonor!"

"It is too true," replied Gomez Arias. "Previous to my arrival at
Guadix, and my acquaintance with you, my honor was bound to the daughter
of Aguilar by indissoluble ties; we were betrothed, and on the point of
being united, when an untoward accident drove me from Granada to avoid
the vengeance of the friends of my discarded rival Don Rodrigo de
Cespedes. Misguided by the fever of passion, I forgot my sacred
obligations to Leonor. You have already but too dreadfully suffered, and
a repetition of such scenes must necessarily increase the anguish of
your situation."

This recital threw the hapless daughter of Monteblanco into that
exquisite agony which falls to the lot of woman alone to feel: for man,
far happier in the diversity of his pursuits; less susceptible in the
refinement of sensibility; more divided in his intercourse with
society, can never experience that poignancy of feeling excited by shame
and disappointed love, which exert their baneful influence over the
heart of forsaken woman!

Theodora answered not her lover; there was something so atrocious in his
recital, that in spite of the palliation which a fond woman, even when
most injured, is anxious to find for the man who has wronged her, she
could not cast a shade over the glaring colours in which Don Lope's
treachery was depicted: she recoiled from him with a feeling of
apprehension, and her countenance assumed a deadly hue as she fearfully
exclaimed--

"And you left me then to perish in the mountains?"

"No, Theodora," eagerly cried Gomez Arias; "no! such intentions never
entered my mind; of that at least I am innocent: it was my purpose to
have placed you in a convent, and I availed myself of your sleep to
spare you the pangs of a separation. Having instructed Roque how to act,
I proceeded onwards to make the necessary arrangements for your
reception in the religious asylum the Moors surprised you; Roque fled:
of the rest I am