Repugnant as was the proposition to leave the island while life was
his, Lorenzo Bezan had no alternative but to do so; and, moreover,
when he considered the attraction that held him on the spot, how the
Senorita Isabella Gonzales had treated him, when she had every
reason to believe that it was his last meeting with her, and nearly
the last hour of his life, he saw that if she would treat him thus
at such a moment, then, when he had not the excuse of remarkable
exigency and the prospect of certain death before him, she would be
no kinder. It was while exercised by such thoughts as these that he
answered the secretary:
"Bear my thanks, with much respect, to the governor-general, and
tell him that I accept from him his noble clemency and justice, the
boon of my life, on his own terms."
The secretary bowed low and departed.
We might tell the reader how Lorenzo Bezan threw himself upon his
bed of straw, and wept like a child-how he shed there the first
tears he had shed since his arrest, freely and without a check. His
heart seemed to bleed more at the idea of leaving the spot where
Isabella lived, and yet to live on himself, elsewhere, than his
spirit had faltered at the idea of certain death.
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