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story. At length, with a blush of the truest and most ingenuous modesty-" It is a tale, my love," he said, " on which it becomes not either you or me to dwell. While my father lived, delicacy for his fame prevented my alluding to it. You have heard-you have no doubt been told, of my father's long attachment to San Carlos's mother. She was-I must offend your purity by naming her—his adored, his idolized mistress. But my father himself little knew that, all the time, Fiorenza was playing a double game-that while she made him believe there was no security for her life or happiness but at Palermo, she was, in fact, residing there as an accredited spy of the French king of Naples, and transmitted, from time to time, to Murat, in return for the stipend he allowed her, information of much importance to him, and of considerable detriment to the English.

"Her artful conduct was never publicly discovered; for had it, by any means, be

come

come known that the lady to whom my father was so long and so blindly attached was an active enemy to this country, not all the principles of loyalty and honour he professed could have saved him from the imputation of sharing in her guilt.

"At length the spell was dissolved; my father returned home, but with him brought San Carlos, who was cruelly disappointed on the discovery of my claims to his fortune. Though his possessions abroad were large, they were in an embarrassed state, from his father's profusion; he dreaded the effects of a counter-revolution in Naples, and had set his heart on a permanent establishment in Ireland, the country of his adopted father.

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Judging of me by himself, he, in order to induce me to accede to some provision being made for him, informed me of the dreadful secret, of which he had been put in possession by the serpent Fiorenza, and threatened to expose my father as her associate and confederate.

"I was aware that this malicious turn might be given to lord Beaudesert's conduct. He had, for a series of years, expatriated himself with a fascinating and beautiful foreigner, and exhibited the most total indifference towards his native country. New to the pleasure of filial sensations, I would, at that period, have died to save my father an additional uneasiness. I saw him eagerly pursuing visions of power, unmindful of the uncertain tenure by which his life was held; and could I blast his only-remaining hope, and send his gray hairs dishonoured to the grave? I promised every thing to the unprincipled San Carlos: my purse, my interest, even my society, which he imagined gave him acceptance and consequence, were ever at his command. He became my constant companion.

"But now, my Geraldine, I am come to the time when he demanded and obtained of me a much more important sacrifice. At the same period-nearly at

the

the same moment, on the night of the fancy-ball, attired as a slave yourself, you completely enslaved us. I had frequently admired you before, but had never asked myself where that admiration would lead till then. San Carlos was immediately and irretrievably captivated. From some mistake, occasioned by the similarity of our dresses, he obtained a few minutes conversation with you, and ascertained the state of our inclinations towards each other. The next morning, the very morning after I had told you (do you not remember it, Geraldine?) that you had enslaved me, and for life, the villain came to me, told me that he had marked you for his own, and that, if I continued to cross his suit, all my former precautions should be vain; and in eight-and-forty hours my father should be branded as a self-condemned exile, a traitor, a voluntary accomplice of the enemies of England. I knew San Carlos's powers of malicious exaggeration; I also knew another, secret,

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so painful, that I hardly could bear to reflect on it myself-my father's days were numbered! the physicians had apprised me, that though he might linger yet a year or two, it was impossible he could ever recover. Rather than my unhappy parent should not spend this remnant of life in honour and peace, I resolved to withdraw, for the present, my pretensions -to watch and guard you, but at a distance, and to trust to a future period, not very far removed, for the reward of my painful forbearance."

"Then-well, and then?" repeated Geraldine, with an inquiring look, and a voice of playful, tender reproach.

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Why then, I believe the world-the cruel world, stepped in between you and me, and had nearly severed two hearts, the most completely suited to each other. "Tis a strange tempting world, my Geraldine; shall we not sometimes fly from it when our lots become one?"

In music, who has not sometimes acknowledged

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