"Alice," cried he, "I am unworthy of your angelic nature. I know I do not deserve that you should even look upon me. But I cannot bid you retract your vow. It is that alone which saves me from despair:--It is that alone which can support me in life, till we meet again.--Oh, Alice, you saw the wretch that came to this island, at war with himself, and sinking fast to an untimely grave!--You recalled me to existence!--You re-generated, and healed my broken heart!--But my father, should he know I love you, he would separate us for ever." Alice raised her eyes, drowned as they were in tears, and looked on him aghast. "Is his rank so very great?" "That is not my fear," returned Ferdinand, "his rank is not higher than your own illustrious blood. But he is so rigid a Catholic; I too well know he would rather see his whole race extinct, than one of them married to a Protestant." Poor Alice was now seized with a violent trembling, and turning deadly pale, leaned for support against a tree. Ferdinand pressed her cold hand. "But I am no bigot, my beloved Alice; and there is a circumstance connected with my family, which may have power to influence a happier fate. It shall be tried; and it is of such importance, I hardly doubt its success." She revived at this assurance, and, with deepened tenderness, he resumed. "Meanwhile, as we hope to be blessed hereafter in an union as indissoluble as our love; forbear to disclose what has now passed between us, to any of your own family. They would communicate it to my father; and the consequence I seek to avert, must then inevitably follow: an eternal separation." The arguments of love, and the pleadings of despair, at last prevailed upon her to make this promise also. Her head was in a whirl of distracting thought. She had never known such distress as overwhelmed her, when, in making this second vow, she felt as if she had at once relinquished her claims on the affection of her nearest relations; and saw the being, for whose sake she had made this boundless sacrifice, on the point of leaving her for an unlimited time, perhaps for ever! Ferdinand beheld the agony of her soul, and too well guessed her apprehensions. Now he felt the mischief he had wrought; now he saw the ruin he had begun in that so lately happy bosom. He had not only awakened a passion there, to feed upon her heart; but he had introduced the scorpions of an accusing conscience, where only a few moments before all was innocence and peace. "Wretch that I am!" cried he to himself; "to repay the blessing of thy tenderness with all this evil!"