know nothing, even if you put me to the torture.
V.: Well! well!—I am silent—I listen—What anxiety!
S.: Juan de Paredes, unhappy orphan, entrusted to a friend—very intimate—in fact a second self—the mission of avenging his wrongs upon the person who dishonored his mother, Doña Mencia, and assassinated his father—and this firm friend finally discovered the scoundrel—ah, he was a man of great power!
V.: And you know his name?
S.: If you interrupt——
V.: I am silent.
S.: The good friend of Juan de Paredes succeeded in approaching—then in speaking with—and, later, in introducing himself into the house of—and, soon in ingratiating himself in the heart of the criminal.—He spied upon him as the wolf-hunter spies upon his prey,—scrutinized his movements—informed himself of his most insignificant actions. He studied his character, his most hidden motives; he followed him everywhere and at all times and at last discovered the place—the place in which the lair of the beast was hidden! He had but a single love on earth!—And there he fixed his eyes, because fixing his eyes there he thrust a dagger into the assassin’s heart.—Not into his heart, no,—into his very soul!—Because, that love was his daughter—a lovely maiden!——
V.: Continue——!
S.: She gave him evidences of her love.
V.: Continue——!
S.: She loved him with all the blindness