use, "can you forgive me?"

This appeal was made in a tone so subdued and pathetic, that a
conviction of its sincerity was readily admitted by the sorrowing
Theodora.

"Forgive thee!" she exclaimed, in a voice thrilling with emotion, whilst
a rich glow of animation overspread those pale features: "Forgive thee,
Lope! Can Theodora deny you!"

Earnestly she raised her clasped hands to Heaven, and, in the genuine
abandonment of an enthusiastic heart,

"Oh God!" she exclaimed, "thy mercies are boundless. Dear Lope!" she
continued, "can I do otherwise than forgive you!" and the tear of joy
glistened in her eye. "Your returning love will repay me for all the
agonies I have undergone. And now you must forgive me--for did I not
even now come armed for your destruction! Oh, horror! I came to murder
thee--in this spot--sleeping as thou wast! But ah! pardon me; I was then
a poor distracted woman, a despairing maniac, and----"

"Stay, my Theodora; reproach not thyself for an act of which I was the
cause; it was a fate that I too justly merited. But no more of that.
Listen, dear girl, and follow my injunctions, as upon their strict
observance depends our future happiness. To-morrow night I will conduct
you to your poor deserted parent: together at his knees we will implore
forgiveness. He will not be invulnerable to the tears and supplications
of his child; and I will forget the wild dreams that have so long
tyrannised over my kinder feelings, to fix all my thoughts upon love and
Theodora. To the happy termination of these designs, however, you must
be willing to pay attention to my instructions."

"I will do all!" emphatically cried Theodora.

"Well," returned Gomez Arias, "take heed that thou keepest silence with
reference to our meeting and resolves;--closed in thy chamber, thou must
appear an uninterested stranger to whatever may be proceeding without.
It will require the utmost delicacy and ability to disclose my
determination to the proud Aguilars, when the arrangements with them are
so far advanced. It is an insult they will never tamely brook, and all
my policy will be necessary to defer, at least for some time, the
terrible explosion of their indignation."

"Oh, Lope," exclaimed the fond girl, in a transport of tenderness, "I
will--I will obey you faithfully! Your slightest wish shall be to me a
law."

The tide of rapturous feeling overflowed her heart. Intoxicated with
happiness, she threw herself beside the cou