Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/315

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"O my love," exclaimed she one day, "how inconceivably blind have you been!"

—"How could I help it?" replied I, "I was completely in the dark, and they even put my thoughts in confusion."

—"You was mistaken, Carlos. Me thinks, that the declaration of your principles alone rendered you worthy in the eyes of the Cabal. They proposed to you the perpetration of the most horrid of crimes, only that they might try whether your mind was incorruptibly honest. It must surely have been a mere scheme to make them acquainted with the real sentiments of your heart, and the bold display of these alone procured your admission. I dare say, you accuse them wrongly of being regicides."

—"May be so. For it is a maxim of theirs, "That the great and the good-may live free under any form of government."

—"I confess, Carlos, that I cease to be a woman, if I reflect on the events of your life. There is something more than human in it. Alfonso's papers must be extremely interesting."