Belflor did not fail to accompany these words with all the arts of persuasion commonly practised with so much success by my devotees: tender looks, heart-broken sighs, and even a few tears were not wanting; and Leonora was of course affected. Despite herself, she began to feel those little flutterings of the heart, which are the usual preludes of capitulation with woman; but far from yielding without a struggle to her tenderness, or pity, or weakness, the more sensible she became of treason in the garrison, the more hastily she resolved to vacate the place. "Count," she exclaimed, "it is in vain you tell me this. I will listen no longer. Do not attempt to detain me: let me leave a house in which my honour is exposed to suspicion; or my cries shall alarm the neighbourhood, and expose your audacity which has dared to insult me." This she uttered with so resolute an air that Chichona, who was on very punctilious terms with the police, prayed the Count not to push matters to extremity. Finding his entreaties useless, he released Leonora, who hastened from the apartment, and, what never happened to any maiden before, left it as she had entered it.
"Let us quit this dangerous house," said Leonora, on rejoining her governante: "finish this idle talk,--we are deceived." "What ails you, child?" cried Marcella in reply; "and why should we leave this poor man so hastily?" "I will tell you," said Leonora; "but let us fly: every instant I remain here but adds to my affliction." However desirous was the duenna to learn the cause of her ward's anxiety, she saw that the best way to be satisfied was to yield to her entreaties; and they quitted the apartment with a celerity which quite discomposed the stately governante, leaving Chichona, the Count, and his valet as much disconcerted as a company of comedians, when the curtain falls on a wretched farce, which the presiding deities of the pit have consigned to a lower deep.
When Leonora found herself safely in the street, she related, as well as her extreme agitation, and Marcella's exclamations of astonishment, would permit, all that had passed in the chamber with the Count and Chichona. "I must confess, child," said the duenna, when they had reached home, "that I am exceedingly mortified to hear what you have just been telling me. To think that I have been the dupe of that wicked woman! You will allow, however, that I was not without my doubts. Why did I yield them? I should have been suspicious of so much kindness and honesty. I have committed a folly which is absolutely inexcusable in a person of my sagacity and experience. Ah! why did you not tell me this in her presence? I would have torn her eyes out: I would have loaded the Count de Belflor with reproaches for his perfidy: and as for the scoundrel with his ducats and his beard, he should not have had a hair left on his head. But I will return, this instant, with the money which I have received as a real restitution; and if I find them still together, they shall not have waited for nothing." So saying, the enraged widow of the generous Rosetta folded her mantilla around her, and left Leonora to weep over the treachery of mankind.