“Refused him!” repeated the other. “Yes, indeed: the degradation was thus made worse than if she had polluted his illustrious blood by becoming his wife: you were not in Portugal then, I know.” “No, I was in Italy,” rejoined his companion, “now I know your sentiments, I will frankly confess that I do not pray for the rash-brained monarch’s return--he was liberal enough, to be sure, but then he exacted heavy returns.--For instance, he gave me a regiment, but it was on condition I followed his mad course to Morocco: fortunately the opportune sickness and death of my wife kept me at home. No, no, Don Sebastian made away with all his friends, when he led on twenty thousand Portuguese like himself, to slaughter, at Alcazar.” Quivering with restrained fury, his eyes striking fire, the young monarch started from his seat, and half-sprung towards the ungrateful miscreants--but suddenly recollecting himself, he turned away, and hastily left the apartment. As he went through a passage opening into a field, he found the landlord had followed him: “What is the matter with thee, friend!” said he, “my guests pronounce thee mad, and recommend my turning thee out: I have not heart to do that--Lopez Vernara never yet closed his door on the houseless.” Sebastian turned round with a look of anguish somewhat sweetened by grateful feelings; “I am not mad--not quite mad,” he said, “though at this moment the most wretched of men. Fear nothing from me, honest Lopez--suffer me only to rest in some place where the sound of human voice may not reach me. I can reward thee, for I am not so poor as I seem.” The good innkeeper pointed to a barn at a little distance. “Go there,” he said, “you will find plenty of clean straw, and no soul shall disturb you. Jesu help thee, poor youth, thou lookest at thy wit’s end!” Lopez turned back into the house as he concluded, and Sebastian wildly trode the path before him. The information afforded by the two travellers had thrown his mind into fresh tumults: to find himself thus blotted out from his subjects’ hearts, hated for his justice, derided by those he had served, betrayed by those he loved, forgotten almost by the whole world, an outcast even in his own kingdom--was a consummation to his misery, which not even misanthropy could have imagined. Murdered for his sake, Gaspar seemed to cry aloud for vengeance: yet where was he to find the means of retribution, when the court, the army, and the people, were steeled against him?