"Say on," replied the young man, "say on, Lucia; and would to heaven you could convince me that I have not wronged you. Say on, then; first, if you will, why you have released me; but above all, speak of yourself--speak freely, and oh! if I can aid, or protect, or comfort you, believe me I will do it at my life's utmost peril."
"I do believe you, Paullus. I did believe that, ere you spoke it. First, then, I set you free--and free you are henceforth, forever."
"Because you are betrayed. Because I know all that fell out last night. Because I know darker villainy plotted against you, yet to come; villainy from which, tramelled by this oath, no earthly power can save you. Because, I know not altogether why or how, my mind has been changed of late completely, and I will lend myself no more to projects, which I loathe, and infamy which I abhor. Because--because--because, in a word, I love you Paullus! Better than all I have, or hope to have on earth."
"But you must not," he replied, gravely yet tenderly, "because"----
"You love another," she interrupted him, very quickly, "You love Julia Serena, Hortensia's lovely daughter; and she loves you, and you are to be wedded soon. You see," she added, with a faint painful smile, "that I know everything about you. I knew it long since; long, long before I gave myself to you; even before I loved you, Paul--for I have loved you, also, long!"
"Loved me long!" he exclaimed, in astonishment, "how can that be, when you never saw me until the day before yesterday?"
"Oh! yes I have," she answered sadly. "I have seen you and known you many years; though you have forgotten me, if even, which I doubt, you ever noticed me at all. But I can bring it to your mind. Have you forgotten how, six summers since, as you were riding down the Collis Hortulorum, you passed a little girl weeping by the wayside?--"
"Over a wounded kid? No, I remember very well. A great country boor had hurt it with a stone."
"And you," exclaimed the girl, with her eyes flashing fire, "you sprang down from your horse, and chastised him, till he whined like a beaten hound, though he was twice as big as you were; and then you bound up the kid's wound, and wiped away the tears--innocent tears they were--of the little girl, and parted her hair, and kissed her on the forehead. That little girl was I, and I have kept that kiss upon my brow, aye, and in my heart too! until now. No lips of man or woman have ever touched that spot which your lips hallowed. From that day forth I have loved you, I have adored you, Paullus. From that day forth I have watched all your ways, unseen and unsuspected. I have seen you do fifty kind, and generous, and gallant actions; but never saw you do one base, or tyrannous, or cowardly, or cruel--"