"It is particularly as a father, that my heart ought to be without pity! Rafaël is an assassin and an incendiary; he is no longer my son!" "What do you mean to do?" Doña Jesuita cried, in accents of terror. "What does that concern you, madam?" Don Ramón replied harshly; "the care of my honour concerns me alone. Sufficient for you to know that this fault is the last your son will commit." "Oh!" she said with terror, "will you then become his executioner?" "I am his judge," the implacable gentleman replied in a terrible voice. "Nô Eusebio, get two horses ready." "My God! my God!" the poor mother cried, rushing towards her son, whom she folded closely in her arms, "will no one come to my succour?" All present were moved; Don Ramón himself could not restrain a tear. "Oh!" she cried with a wild joy, "he is saved! God has softened the heart of this inflexible man!" "You are mistaken, madam," Don Ramón interrupted, pushing her roughly back, "your son is no longer mine, he belongs to my justice!" Then fixing on his son a look cold as a steel blade, he said in a voice so stern that in spite of himself it made the young man start. "Don Rafaël, from this instant you no longer form a part of this society, which your crimes have horrified; it is with wild beasts that I condemn you to live and die." At this terrible sentence, Doña Jesuita took a few steps towards her son, but, tottering, she fell prostrate--she had fainted. Up to this moment Rafaël had, with a great effort, suppressed in his heart the emotions which agitated him, but at this last accident he could no longer restrain himself; he sprang towards his mother, burst into tears, and uttered a piercing cry: "My mother! my mother!" "Come this way," said Don Ramón, laying his hand upon his shoulder. The boy stopped, staggering like a drunken man. "Look, sir! pray look!" he cried, with a heartbroken sob; "my mother is dying!" "It is you who have killed her!" the hacendero replied coldly. Rafaël turned round as if a serpent had stung him; he darted at his father a look of strange expression, and, with clenched teeth and a livid brow said to him, "Kill me, sir; for I swear to you that in the same manner as you have been pitiless to my mother and me, if I live I will be hereafter pitiless to you!" Don Ramón cast upon him a look of contempt. "Come on!" he said. "Come on, then!" the boy repeated in a firm tone. Doña Jesuita, who was beginning to recover her senses, perceived the departure of her son, as if in a dream. "Rafaël! Rafaël!" she shrieked. The young man hesitated for a second; then, with a bound, he sprang towards her, kissed her with wild tenderness, and rejoining his father, said-- "Now I can die! I have bidden adieu to my mother!" And they went out. The household, deeply moved by this scene, separated without communicating their impressions to each other, but all penetrated with sincere grief.