O God of mercy! from thy records raze This guilty frenzy!--let some pitying rays Beam on my madden’d brain, and teach my soul To bow submissive to thy wise control! Teach me to know, that when I loved too well, I gave a mortal in thy place to dwell! O teach me then to own thy just decree, And bless the thorny path that leads to thee! Pity, heightened to the poignancy of agony by fatal sympathy with the situation here described, seized Sebastian; he put down the tablet in extreme agitation, for love began now to struggle with indignation, and the tenderness of the unhappy unknown became infectious: a confusion of fond, delightful recollections, at once entered his soul; some rare moments of transcendent happiness again re-appeared,--moments in which the beauty, the accomplishments, the well-acted love and purity of Gonsalva had exalted him to beatitude. O! how was it possible that this transport had been deceptive, that this perfection of woman’s charms was even then immersed in the low gratifications of illicit passion, in the horrible practice of systematic deceit? After this hateful idea rapidly followed a recapitulation of her various arts while urging on a secret marriage, which was too surely destined to cover the proof of her shameful conduct, as by no difficult manœuvre her child might have been passed upon him and on his people for the legitimate heir to the crown of Portugal. Fury flashed from Sebastian’s eyes at this thought; tenderness fled; and the frenzy of a heart outraged and betrayed in every point, suddenly succeeded. “No, perfidious monster!” he exclaimed aloud, “thy crimes murder regret.--Thou hast not been commonly frail, nor deserted me for another honorable lover; then I might have lamented thee, pity might have united with love in regretting that thou wast not perfect, and I might have still doated on the past, like this fond wretch: but thou hast fallen into such an abyss of guilt, that even memory sees thee only as thou art now.” He closed his eyes as if to shut out her image, and turning to another part of the cavern, threw himself down once more in the hope of obtaining repose. It was long ere his tumultuous feelings and throbbing brain were stilled by sleep: piercing thoughts, like flashes of lightning quivering by fits through the blackness of some starless night, frequently shot across the gloom that gradually succeeded to frenzy: but at length the dumb caresses of Barémel softened every emotion, and he sunk to rest amid the calm of rising resignation.