compelled to pronounce a word that burns on my lips. I rob a name and all its rights, and I deprive my victims of their best means of defence against a cupidity that may any day develop in my descendants, and perhaps give rise to a worse iniquity in the future. Don't you see it? Surely you must see it if you are not totally blind! I must tell the truth, the whole truth, in a loud voice, happen what will.
Doña Ángela. Lorenzo!
Don Lorenzo. Would a judge and a tribunal sentence me to despoilment of my goods alone, or to despoilment of both my goods and my name? Of everything, everything—is it not so? Then what a judge would decide I have to do myself—my own judge—or I am a wretched fellow. Such, my poor wife, is what my conscience ordains me to do. I want no half-hearted view of honesty, for there is no middle term between clean honour and complete abasement. All this is quite clear to me. Nothing so clear as duty.
Doña Ángela. Very well, if the affair is made public the duchess will not give her consent.
Don Lorenzo. She will not consent. 'Tis what I have already said.
Doña Ángela. Ah, Lorenzo, Lorenzo, you are everything,—philosopher, moralist, jurisconsult, and, needless to say, gentleman. All, all, wretched reflecting machine, except a father.
Don Lorenzo. If you want to drive me out of my senses you are succeeding.
Doña Ángela. That would indeed be difficult.
Don Lorenzo. Because I am out of them already?
Doña Ángela. Yes, but you haven't yet got to the bottom of the abyss. Hear me, Lorenzo, for I, too, understand something of logic—after all, am I not your
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