d with the
gratification of their vanity, but incapable of a bold and generous
resolution in favor of the man they pretend to love. I will not upbraid
you; but from this moment cast you from me as a piece of inanimate clay,
a painted thing, alike incapable of estimating and sharing my regard."

Saying this he rudely disengaged himself from her arms, whilst the
unfortunate Theodora, affrighted at the violence of his manner, fixed on
him a wild and vacant stare, the intensity of her grief depriving her of
the power of reflection. But when she saw her lover actually receding
from the place, her mind started from its abstraction, and her thoughts
were fixed upon the dreadful desertion that now threatened her. She gave
a frantic shriek, and fell lifeless on the ground.

Alarmed at the effect produced by his passionate and cruel proceeding,
Gomez Arias hurried back to the spot, and raising the lovely victim from
the ground, gazed on her with all the anxiety of returning affection.
Theodora was in his arms, but, alas! her beautiful eyes were closed, her
cheek was colourless, and a cold suffusion bathed her stiffened limbs.
The vital spark had apparently deserted its frail tenement, for no sign
of conscious life was there. Don Lope's angry feelings had given way to
his fears for her safety, and as he wiped the cold dew from her face, he
perceived blood trickling slowly down her marble brow. In the violence
of her fall upon the gravelled walk, a flint had wounded her forehead,
and the crimson drops that issued from it contrasted mournfully with the
frozen paleness of her countenance.

Gomez Arias was moved as he gazed intensely on the angelic creature now
before him. This was no artful fiction, no solemn mockery of woe: a few
words had worked that dreadful revolution in her mind. Perhaps there is
at times an indescribable cruelty in love that prompts a man, in a
certain degree, to enjoy the misery which is wrought by an excess of
affection towards him, and triumph now mingled with compassion in the
abandoned lover's heart. He was, however, soon called to more generous
sentiments. Anxiety and regret took place of vanity, while his passion
for Theodora acquired new intensity as he scanned her beauteous figure
and contemplated the distress he had occasioned. With the most endearing
efforts he endeavoured to reanimate the lifeless form of Theodora. He
ardently pressed the yielding burthen to his heart, placed his glowing
cheek by