Here Leocadia ceased speaking.  All present had listened to her in profound silence, and in the same way they awaited the reply of Marco Antonio.  “I cannot deny, senora,” he said, “that I know you; your voice and your face will not suffer me to do that.  Nor yet can I deny how much I owe to you, nor the great worth of your parents and your own incomparable modesty and virtue.  I do not, and never shall, think lightly of you for what you have done in coming to seek me in such a disguise; on the contrary, I shall always esteem you for it in the highest degree.  But since, as you say, I am so near my end, I desire to make known to you a truth, the knowledge of which, if it be unpleasant to you now, may hereafter be useful to you.

“I confess, fair Leocadia, that I loved you, and you loved me; and yet I confess also that my written promise was given more in compliance with your desire than my own; for before I had long signed it my heart was captivated by a lady named Teodosia, whom you know, and whose parentage is as noble as your own.  If I gave you a promise signed with my hand, to her I gave that hand itself in so unequivocal a manner that it is impossible for me to bestow it on any other person in the world.  My amour with you was but a pastime from which I culled only some flowers, leaving you nothing the worse; from her I obtained the consummate fruit of love upon my plighted faith to be her husband.  That I afterwards deserted you both was the inconsiderate act of a young man who thought that all such things were of little importance, and might be done without scruple.  My intention was to go to Italy, and after spending some of the years of my youth there, to return and see what had become of you and my real wife; but Heaven in its mercy, as I truly believe, has permitted me to be brought to the state in which you see me, in order that in thus confessing my great faults, I may fulfil my last duty in this world, by leaving you disabused and free, and ratifying on my deathbed the pledge I gave to Teodosia.  If there is anything, senora Leocadia, in which I can serve you during the short time that remains to me, let me know it; so it be not to receive you as nay wife, for that I cannot, there is nothing else which I will not do, if it be in my power, to please you.”

Marco Antonio, who had raised himself on one arm while he spoke, now fell back senseless.  Don Rafael then came forward.  “Recover yourself, dear senor,” he said, embracing him affectionately, “and embrace your friend and your brother, since such you desire him to be.”

Marco Antonio opened his eyes, and recognising Don Rafael, embraced him with great warmth.  “Dear brother and senor,” he said, “the extreme joy I feel in seeing you must needs be followed by a proportionate affliction, since, as they say, after gladness comes sorrow; but whatever befals me now I will receive with pleasure in exchange for the happiness of beholding you.”