“And thou wouldst leave me, Pedro,” she said, in a low, deep tone, so plaintive in its modulation, that the tears almost reached his eyes, unused though they were to such a visitation. “Thou wouldst leave me,” she repeated; “but canst thou forget? Oh! not to the hours of dalliance, not to the day when words of love thrilled to our hearts with unearthly power, do I call thy memory now; but to those darker hours when adversity broke in a thousand waves; when death awaited his victim, and hope seemed shrouded in the pall of despair. Whose sympathy consoled thee then? Whose hand wrestled through many fearful trials with the dark destroyer? Whose heart grew cold with thine beneath that awful pall? “Pedro!” she exclaimed with a wild energy, while the mournful shadow of her eyes gave place to a brighter glow, for even that appeal was ineffectual. “Pedro! if thou wilt go, go freely; but remember that her heart has not yet learned as mine has, to find its life in thine. If I had ever proved myself less than a part of thee, thy true and real wife, thou mightest now hesitate; but canst thou say that I have ever let my own hopes, fears, or projects be apart from thine? My life is thine. Wilt thou tear me from thy heart? ’Tis thy own eye thou blindest, and thy own tongue thou pluckest out.” She stood before him, stately and magnificent; he quailed before the fearful majesty which crowned that brow with regal power; the kindling fire which dwelt in those dark, glowing orbs beneath, seemed to gleam with supernatural light upon the very inmost motives of his soul. “Go, go! if thou no longer lovest me I would not have thee near; but my image will be with thee as the mistletoe upon the oak. Thou canst not leave or kill it, till thy own life fails; ’twill rise at every hour of thy life in judgment on the heart which dared not keep the holiest treasure man can win.” His eyes met hers with a clear firm gaze. “It is over,” he said. “When honor hath two calls love shall be the arbiter.” CHAPTER IV. Alburquerque being now banished from the court, Henestrosa, the uncle of Maria, became his successor, and he and Maria’s brother, Garcia de Padilla, became the confidants and advisers of the love-bound monarch. Fortunately Maria’s love was not so selfish as their ambition, and her empire over Pedro, that of a powerful intellect and an enthusiastic spirit, was often used for the behests of gentleness and mercy. Pedro felt but too keenly his anomalous position. His secret marriage with Maria, to whom his honor and his love alike constrained him to be just; his unprincipled conduct towards Blanche; the loss of old and attached friends; the evident displeasure of his subjects, and the machinations of those whom he had so suddenly disgraced, filled his mind with many fearful struggles. Too unprincipled to be capable of sacrifice or concession, his endeavor was to reconcile all parties without compromising himself.