Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/307

 I hope and pray, you will always give him reason to rejoice in his future happiness."

Adela was silent. Perhaps she know not what to answer, nor understood his meaning.

"My moments are counted," pursued he after a short pause, "and I feel it, that those which still remain, are but a few. My papers will teach Don Carlos the whole series of the vicissitudes of my eventful life. I left them at the villa near Alcantara, in a little box, in the room which I inhabited on the groundsel. You will find the key of it in my portmanteau, with some papers relative to our covenant. Ah! Carlos, how I lament, that this should be the reward of my love, of my fidelity, my more than human tenderness to you. It was I that received you an infant from your mother's lap; have you never heard of Count Diego de Lascara?"

"I have heard of such a man," replied I, "he is my uncle, my mother's brother, formerly governor of Seville."

"Then I am he," continued Alfonso; "I am that uncle, who renounced all the gifts