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So we will follow Ruez to the volante, and dash away with him and Don Gonzales to the Paseo, for a circular drive. "I left General Bezan and Isabella together in the drawing-room," began Ruez to his father, just as they passed outside of the city walls. "Yes. I knew he was there," said the father, indifferently. "That was a very singular affair that occurred between him and the Countess Moranza."
The reader would have seen at once that she received his declaration of love for another like a death blow, that she sat there and heard him go on as one would sit under torture; yet by the strong force of her character subduing almost entirely all outward emotions. There was no disguising it to a careful observer, she, the Countess Moranza, loved him!
As he spoke thus, he sat down by the side of his table, and casting his eyes vacantly thereon, suddenly started at seeing the address of his own name, and in the hand of the Countess Moranza. It was the package she had handed to him at her dying moment. In the excitement of the scene, and the circumstances that followed, he had not opened it, and there it had since laid forgotten.
I happen to know that district-rich in castles, convents, churches, cattle, retainers. Ah, Countess Moranza, but it sadly reminds me of thy fate. Thou didst love me, ay, truly-and I so blind that I knew it not. But regrets are useless; thy memory shall ever be most tenderly cherished by him whom thou hast so signally befriended, so opportunely endowed."
The court gossips, ever ready to improve any opportunity that may offer, invented all manner of scandal and prejudicial stories concerning the peerless and chaste Countess Moranza; but she was above the power of their shafts, and entertained Lorenzo Bezan with prodigal hospitality.
No step towards preferment and honor did he make without comparing his situation with the humble lieutenant's birth that he filled when he first knew Isabella Gonzales, and when his hopes had run so high, as it regarded winning her love. Of all the beauty and rank of the Castilian court, at the period of which we write, the Countess Moranza was universality pronounced the queen of beauty.
He broke the seal and read, "The enclosed paper is my last will and testament, whereby I do give and bequeath to my friend, General Lorenzo Bezan, my entire estates in the Moranza district of Seville, as his sole property, to have and to hold, and for his heirs after him, forever. This gift is a memento of our friendship, and a keepsake from one who cherished him for his true nobility of soul!"
"It is the Countess Moranza," replied the suffering creature, while her eyes were bent on Lorenzo Bezan with an expression of most ineffable tenderness. All this while Isabella stood aghast, quite in the rear of them all; but that look was not lost upon her; she shuddered, and a cold perspiration stood upon her brow. Had she lived to see such a sight-lived to see another preferred to herself?
Lorenzo Bezan, almost crazed with the contending emotions that beset him, knew not what to say-what to do; he obeyed her wish, and left the room, as did also the rest, leaving Isabella and the Countess Moranza alone together.
Could he be dreaming? was he in his senses? Her entire estates of Moranza, in Seville-a princely fortune given to him thus? He could not believe his senses, and moved about his room with the open letter in his hand, not knowing what he did. It was long before he could calm his excitement. What cared he for fortune, except so far as it brought him near to her he loved.
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