decaying nature was upon his eyes; but yet he fixed them intensely on
that fading form that bore the resemblance of his once-beloved child. He
could not speak, nor did his daughter attempt to break this pause of
dreadful solemnity. Her overpowering grief burst with impetuous
effusion; in briny showers the tears fell, and her bosom seemed ready
to break under the pressure of heavy and tumultuous groans. Monteblanco
was moved to tears; his parched eyelids, which appeared unused to these
testimonies of sympathy, were bathed in moisture. He wept, while in
soothing accents he endeavoured to raise his daughter from the ground.
But she struggled to preserve her humble position.

"Oh, my father!" she cried in an agonizing tone, "your kindness will
kill me more than cruelty. I am unworthy of so much tenderness;
forgiveness, only forgiveness, is the melancholy boon that the wretched,
the guilty Theodora craves from her venerable and injured parent."

The recollection of some dark dream seemed now to absorb the senses of
the old man. The debility to which sickness had reduced his mental and
physical powers, and the overpowering efficacy of a first impression of
pleasure and surprise, had entirely banished from his mind the dreadful
image of a parent's just indignation. At first he only saw his lost
child returned to his arms, nor in that moment of agitation did he
recur to the cause of her absconding, to the state in which she
returned. All the sensations which might naturally spring in the bosom
of an injured cavalier were deadened by the more powerful feelings of a
father's love.

But now that the first emotion had subsided, and that the voice of the
guilty Theodora sounded distinctly in his ear, the attention of Don
Manuel was promptly recalled to images of a painful nature. His
daughter's desertion and the misery consequent on this first act of
guilt, rushed upon his mind in deepened and aggravated colours. He
rudely drew back the hand which the unfortunate Theodora was bathing
with her tears, and in a tone of indignant feeling--

"Say," he cried, "art thou come to hasten my departure from a wretched
state of existence?--Speak, guilty as thou art; unfold the horrid tale;
and when I am doubly cursed, when I have seen thee thus forlorn and
blasted by guilt and misfortune, then let me die!"

"Oh my father," she exclaimed with heart-rending emotion, "I am a
criminal daughter--a wretch unworthy of the name I bear--yes, I ampl