Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/100

 jected—what more is wanted to make a wife superlatively wretched?You should be ashamed Pedro.—"

"I know very well, what I say,—For the present, I'll hear no more on the subject."

Thus terminated a conversation, in which each was so fain to have duped the other. I went home soon after, and did not speak to Don Pedro for several days, and when I spoke to him Francisca was out of the way, and I would not enquire for her.

Shortly after Pedro said he was obliged to go on a journey. Without telling me whither. At parting, he begged, if I had the least friendship for him, not to forget the warning he had given me. I was not disposed to return a very explicit answer; it seemed as if the name of Francisca discovered itself in all my thoughts, and as if I were not quite pleased with that discovery.

Meanwhile I firmly resolved to avoid visiting her, as long as he should be absent. But I could plainly perceive, that the poor thing loved me, and shared none of Pedro's artifices, nay even opposed them, I purposed