_Lorenzo_ [_aside_]--Now you shall see how my madness will end. Before I leave this house, with what pleasure will I turn that doctor out of it. Courage! The coming struggle inspires me with new strength. What! Is a man to be declared mad because he is resolved to do his duty? Ah, it cannot be! Humanity is neither so blind nor so base as that. Enough! I must be calm. Treachery has begun its work; then let the punishment begin too. [_Aloud._] The hour has come for me to perform a sacred duty, though a most painful one. It would be useless to ask you to witness formalities which the law requires, but which you would only find irksome. The representative of the law awaits me in yonder room; and in obedience to another and a higher law, I am going now to renounce a fortune which is not mine, and a name which neither I nor my family can conscientiously bear longer. After this is done I will return here, and with my wife, and--and my daughter--and let no one seek to dissuade me from my purpose, for it would be in vain--I will leave this house which has been for me in the past the abode of love and happiness, but which is to-day the abode of treachery and baseness. Gentlemen [_to Dr. Tomás and Dr. Bermúdez_], lead the way; I beg you to do so.
[_All slowly enter the study. On the threshold Lorenzo casts a last look at Inez._]
Translation made for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Mary J. Serrano
[In the scenes which are here cited the poison of slander begins to work. Don Severo, uttering the anonymous gossip of the world, has implanted in the mind of his middle-aged brother Don Julian the first suspicion of the honor of his young wife Teodora and the loyalty of his adopted son Ernest. Teodora, who has been warned by Mercedes, Don Severo's wife, overhears the accusing words of her brother-in-law, who is talking with her husband in an inner apartment; and horror-struck, is about to fly from the room.]
_Mercedes_ [_inside_]--No, for Heaven's sake!
_Severo_ [_to Ernest_]--You shall give me satisfaction for this!
_Enter_ Julian, _pale and disordered; wounded and seemingly in a dying condition, supported by_ Mercedes. Don Severo _stations himself at the right_, Teodora _and_ Ernest _remain in the background_.