SCENE IV.

Blanca: Sancho!

Sancho: Ah, Blanca--what is the matter?

B.: Nothing; nothing; how happy I am to find you here.

S.: Did you not sleep?

B.: No. I could not. Slumber fled from my eyes.

S.: Why? Are you not here secure? What do you fear? Have I not told you----?

B.: In vain I seek repose. My agitated spirit wakes; my afflicted soul recalls the past and trembles for the future. There are moments, when I feel that I shall go mad!

S.: You tremble, are cold--Blanca, calm yourself.

B.: The memory of this misfortune haunts me.

S.: You still insist----!

B.: You attempt to conceal it from me, in vain.... Last night I overheard, when Fortun announced to you the death of this--of this marquis.

S.: Well! What of that?--Man’s days are numbered. His hour of punishment arrives.

B.: Moreover, I can not conceal it from you, Sancho; the passing moments seem to me eternities.--We cannot continue living thus.--It is necessary that God should sanctify this union.

S.: Soon--very soon.

B.: This is not my house. Much as I love you, much as I have sacrificed my dignity upon the altar of this love, I cannot be tranquil. I feel something here, in my breast, of which I had no idea before,--and--you see, I cannot venture to raise my eyes in your presence.--The blush, which inflames my cheek, is the shame of guilt----

S.: You, guilty----?

B.: Just the same!--What am I, here?--When I am alone no one beholds me, but I would even hide me from myself.--If, in snatching me from my home, you have taken advantage of my love, do not sport with my weakness.

S.: Blanca, God reads our hearts----

B.: Yes, and because God reads them, I implore you, once for all, to end this situation. What is past is as the image of a fearful dream.--To have dreamed it alone had seemed to me impossible. Cruel! this is very cruel!--Your very presence is enough to humiliate me--and I could not live without your presence!--I would desire that looking at you my heart should beat with joy. I wish to feel that which I have always felt at seeing you! that which I felt before!--Why turn your face away? Why does your stern and sombre glance uneasily conceal itself beneath your lids, and why do you not look at me as heretofore?

S.: Blanca, you suspect----

B.: No, I do not suspect; I believe. I confess it frankly.... Love is born and grows slowly, but it may die in a single instant!--Mine is the guilt.

S.: Cease.--Do you not see that you are lacerating my soul?

B.: Listen! At night you slept--I watched! I shuddered, for presently I heard your voice, as if distant, broken and tremulous--you were speaking as if an enormous rock weighed down upon your breast----

S.: You are right--it was so----!

B.: You uttered crushing words,--words of vengeance--of dishonor--of love!

S.: Also of love!

B.: Among those words, which issued as if drawn from the innermost places of your heart, and which escaped from your lips like an echo--I heard my name.--What was this, Sancho?--Tell me.

S.: A dream!--an awful nightmare! I know not whether I dreamed. I know not whether I was awake. I saw you, Blanca, humiliated, degraded, vile,---- ... and in this fearful struggle between my love and my vengeance----

B.: Your vengeance!

S.: You do not know what that is! Grief wrung my soul; I felt madness in my brain; despair sprung up in my heart as the tempest in the black centre of the storm-cloud and a torrent of blasphemies and prayers broke from my lips.

B.: Sancho! But you are still delirious!

S.: No, Blanca; no, my poor Blanca--Now, I am not delirious; no! but I believe indeed, I shall go mad. There still continues, in my soul, a frightful combat--here I feel the battle, fierce, desperate,--mortal. Go--recover yourself.--Leave me alone!

B.: Sancho!

S.: I love you.--Go----!

(Blanca leaves, weeping.)