“By a singular chance it was discovered to me;” replied Don Emanuel,--“On my return from the Indies I went to visit my affianced wife, and found her all that she had been described to me in beauty, wit, and accomplishments. I confess that these graces, together with the animated reception she then gave me, dazzled away my intended scrutiny of her disposition, and I reluctantly tore myself from the temptation of making her wholly mine, in order to devote myself to the last hours of my respected grandfather. When we met again, her manner was changed; an air of haughty coldness, almost amounting to contempt, gave to her beauty a new character, but that character was one which disgusted me. I could only suppose that I was indebted for this to pique at my preferring a sacred duty to the indulgence of passion.” The death of my grandfather interrupted the uneasy thoughts which her evident caprice or selfish vanity had created: my mourning was yet fresh, when in journeying from Santaren to her father’s villa near Crato, it was providentially ordained that I should pass through a cluster of farm-houses, one of which was on fire. It was midnight at this time; my servants assisted me to succour the inhabitants; most of them were saved, but one woman, whom I rescued at the imminent hazard of my life, was so grievously burned that that no hope could be entertained of her recovery. On learning my name, she testified the most extraordinary agitation and desiring to be left alone with me, entered upon a confession of guilt which filled me with consternation. Judge my astonishment, Sire! when I found that she was the confidential maid of Donna Gonsalva, and having met with this fatal accident during a short visit to her family, deemed it a visitation of divine justice.--She told me”--here De Castro paused apprehensively. “Proceed without fear!” said Sebastian, with a steady voice, though his cheek was blanched--“the name once so dear to me is now only a watch-word of horror or of pity. I am eager to know her, and her seducer, completely.” Don Emanuel resumed. “I learnt from the woman’s recital these facts.--Left to the care of so indolent, unsuspicious and weak a guardian as her aunt, Donna Gonsalva had ill brooked the retirement to which she was condemned by the absence of her father and of her husband; her restless vanity was eager for gratification, when chance shewed her to Don Antonio of Crato. I pass over his passion and its seductions; he found the fair Gonsalva too ready to sacrifice herself to vanity and ambition: he was the King’s cousin, and he persuaded her that your majesty had sworn never to marry, but resolved on declaring him heir to the crown by substantiating his mother’s marriage with the Duke De Beja, after which Antonio would endeavour to procure the Pope’s dispensation for making her his wife. “These temptations, added to the insinuating manners of her lover, conquered the virtue of Gonsalva--she yielded herself to the prior.”