SCENE IX

DON LORENZO. [_Tries to lift Juana and she resists._] Come, Juana, come and rest. Afterwards we will talk as much as you like.

JUANA. Afterwards, no. Suppose I should die before!

DON LORENZO. [_Impatiently._] Nonsense; you mustn't think of such a thing.

JUANA. It is twenty years since I have seen you, and now they won't leave us together an instant. It is very cruel of them.

DON LORENZO. [_Again tries to raise her._] Afterwards, my good Juana.

JUANA. And you too want to leave me—you too! Ah, I can compel you to stay with me.

DON LORENZO. Juana!

JUANA. Listen—one word, and then you are free, if you still wish to leave me. It was I, I myself, who stole the locket.

DON LORENZO. You!

JUANA. Yes.

DON LORENZO. What for?

JUANA. So that you might not see it.

DON LORENZO. Why?

JUANA. Because there was a paper in it containing something your mother had written that I did not want you to see.

DON LORENZO. What was it?

JUANA. I know the words by heart. They were: 'Lorenzo, my son, in the casket which lies at the head of my bed there is hidden a paper under a sealed envelope. When I am dead, open it, and read what I wrote during a night of sharp remorse. Forgive me, and may God inspire you.'

DON LORENZO. [_In surprise._] 'Forgive me, and may God inspire you.' She wrote that?

JUANA. Yes.

DON LORENZO. You also made strange mention of remorse. [_With increasing curiosity._]

JUANA. Remorse was the word. Now go away if you like.

DON LORENZO. [_Thinking._] No. [_Pause._] And that paper?

JUANA. It was no secret for me that your mother had written it. Where it was hidden was what I did not know. That there was something hidden in the locket a vigilance so alert as mine had easily discovered, and what the paper contained misgiving helped me to divine. That was why I took the locket. It was mine by right. It had cost me twenty years of tears and anguish, than which none more bitter or intolerable have ever been shed.

DON LORENZO. Forgiveness, remorse, a secret—and my mother! I cannot imagine what you would say. Confused shades gather and drift before my mind, and pain strikes my heart in lightning flashes. You are raving, and you make me rave too.

JUANA. No, no.

DON LORENZO. But that secret paper in the casket——

JUANA. It was mine, and you did not see it because it was not right you should see it. Since your mother was dead, what could it matter to her? Have I not said it,—there is nothing more selfish than death?

DON LORENZO. That paper——

JUANA. I have it.

DON LORENZO. Here?

JUANA. Here. [_Lifts her hand to her bosom._] Look, it is but a sheet of paper, and yet it weighs so heavily upon my heart.

DON LORENZO. I must see it.