Part 31 (2/2)
”Close the door gently, and I will tell you all. And oh! tread softly, lest my mother, who lies asleep in the room beneath, worn out with watching, should wake and separate us. Then must I bear my guilt and my anguish unconfessed to the grave.”
Juan obeyed, and took a seat beside his cousin's couch.
”Sit where I can see your face,” said Gonsalvo; ”I will not shrink even from _that_. Don Juan, I am your brother's murderer.”
Juan started, and his colour changed rapidly.
”If I did not think you were mad--”
”I am no more mad than you are,” Gonsalvo interrupted. ”I _was_ mad, indeed; but that horrible night, when G.o.d smote my body, I regained my reason. I see all things clearly now--too late.”
”Am I to understand, then,” said Juan, rising from his seat, and speaking in measured tones, though his eye was like a tiger's--”am I to understand that you--_you_--denounced my brother? If so, thank G.o.d that you are lying helpless there.”
”I am not quite so vile a thing as that. I did not intend to harm a hair of his head; but I detained him here to his ruin. He had the means of escape provided, and but for me would have been in safety ere the Alguazils came.”
”Well for both of us your guilt was not greater. Still, you cannot expect me--just yet--to forgive you.”
”I expect no forgiveness from man,” said Gonsalvo, who perhaps disdained to plead in his own exculpation the generous words of Carlos.
Juan had by this time changed his tone towards his cousin, and a.s.sumed his perfect sanity; though, engrossed by the thought of his brother, he was quite unconscious of the mental process by which he had arrived at this conclusion. He asked,--
”But why did you detain him? How did you come to know at all of his intended flight?”
”He had a safe asylum provided for him by some friend--I know not whom,”
said Gonsalvo, in reply. ”He was going forth at midnight to seek it.
At the same hour I also”--(for a moment he hesitated, but quickly went on)--”was going forth--to plunge a dagger in my enemy's heart. We met face to face; and each confided his errand to the other. He sought, by argument and entreaty, to move me from a purpose which seemed to him a great crime. But ere our debate was ended, G.o.d laid his hand in judgment upon me; and whilst Don Carlos lingered, speaking words of comfort--brave and kind, though vain--the Alguazils came, and he was taken.”
Juan listened in gloomy silence.
”Did he leave no message, not one word, for me?” he asked at last, in a low voice.
”Yes; one word. Filled with wonder at the calmness with which he met his terrible fate, I cried out, as they led him from the room, 'Vaya con Dios, Don Carlos, a braver man than you have I never seen!' With one long mournful look, that haunts me still, he said, '_Tell Ruy!_'”
Strong man as he was, Don Juan Alvarez bowed his head and wept. They were the first tears the great sorrow had wrung from him--almost the first that he ever remembered shedding. Gonsalvo saw no shame in them.
”Weep on,” he said--”weep on; and thank G.o.d that thy tears are for sorrow only, not for remorse.”
Hoa.r.s.e and heavy sobs shook the strong frame. For some time they were the only sounds that broke the stillness. At length Gonsalvo said, slowly,--
”He gave me something to keep, which in right should belong to thee.”
Juan looked up. Gonsalvo half raised himself, and drew a cus.h.i.+on from beneath his head. First he took off its outer cover of fine holland; then he inserted his hand into an opening that seemed like an accidental rip, and, not without some trouble, drew out a small volume. Juan seized it eagerly: well did he know his brother's Spanish Testament.
”Take it,” said Gonsalvo; ”but remember it is a dangerous treasure.”
<script>