espair when she
heard no performance was to be given. In the evening the count told her
that your passports had been returned with the order to leave in three
days. The false creature praised her lover's prudence to his face, but
she cursed him in her heart.

"She knew you would not dare to see her, and when you left without
writing her a note, she said you had received secret orders not to hold
any further communications with her. She was furious with the viceroy.

"'If Casanova had had the courage to ask me to go with him, I would have
gone,' said she.

"Your man told her of your fortunate escape from three assassins. In the
evening she congratulated Ricla on the circumstance, but he swore he knew
nothing about it. Nina did not believe him. You may thank God from the
bottom of your heart that you ever left Spain alive after knowing Nina.
She would have cost you your life at last, and she punishes me for having
given her life."

"What! Are you her mother?"

"Yes; Nina, that horrible woman, is my daughter."

"Really? Everybody says you are her sister."

"That is the horrible part of it, everybody is right."

"Explain yourself!"

"Yes, though it is to my shame. She is my sister and my daughter, for she
is the daughter of my father."

"What! your father loved you?"

"I do not know whether the scoundrel loved me, but he treated me as his
wife. I was sixteen then. She is the daughter of the crime, and God knows
she is sufficient punishment for it. My father died to escape her
vengeance; may he also escape the vengeance of God. I should have
strangled her in her cradle, but maybe I shall strangle her yet. If I do
not, she will kill me."

I remained dumb at the conclusion of this dreadful story, which bore all
the marks of truth.

"Does Nina know that you are her mother?"

"Her own father told her the secret when she was twelve, after he had
initiated her into the life she has been living ever since. He would have
made her a mother in her turn if he had not killed himself the same year,
maybe to escape the gallows."

"How did the Conte de Ricla fall in love with her?"

"It is a short story and a curious one. Two years ago she came to
Barcelona from Portugal, and was placed in one of the ballets for the
sake of her pretty face, for as to talents she had none, and could only
do the rebaltade (a sort of skip and pirouette) properly.

"The first evening she danced she was loudly applauded by the pit, for as