“Listen to me, dearest friend, and permit me to gain your confidence.  Are the happy days of mutual love which have passed to be to me as a dream never to return?  Alas!  You have a secret grief that destroys us both:  but you must permit me to win this secret from you.  Tell me, can I do nothing?  You well know that on the whole earth there is no sacrifise that I would not make, no labour that I would not undergo with the mere hope that I might bring you ease.  But if no endeavour on my part can contribute to your happiness, let me at least know your sorrow, and surely my earnest love and deep sympathy must soothe your despair.

“I fear that I speak in a constrained manner:  my heart is overflowing with the ardent desire I have of bringing calm once more to your thoughts and looks; but I fear to aggravate your grief, or to raise that in you which is death to me, anger and distaste.  Do not then continue to fix your eyes on the earth; raise them on me for I can read your soul in them:  speak to me to me [sic], and pardon my presumption.  Alas!  I am a most unhappy creature!”

I was breathless with emotion, and I paused fixing my earnest eyes on my father, after I had dashed away the intrusive tears that dimmed them.  He did not raise his, but after a short silence he replied to me in a low voice:  “You are indeed presumptuous, Mathilda, presumptuous and very rash.  In the heart of one like me there are secret thoughts working, and secret tortures which you ought not to seek to discover.  I cannot tell you how it adds to my grief to know that I am the cause of uneasiness to you; but this will pass away, and I hope that soon we shall be as we were a few months ago.  Restrain your impatience or you may mar what you attempt to alleviate.  Do not again speak to me in this strain; but wait in submissive patience the event of what is passing around you.”

“Oh, yes!” I passionately replied, “I will be very patient; I will not be rash or presumptuous:  I will see the agonies, and tears, and despair of my father, my only friend, my hope, my shelter, I will see it all with folded arms and downcast eyes.  You do not treat me with candour; it is not true what you say; this will not soon pass away, it will last forever if you deign not to speak to me; to admit my consolations.

“Dearest, dearest father, pity me and pardon me:  I entreat you do not drive me to despair; indeed I must not be repulsed; there is one thing that which [sic] although it may torture me to know, yet that you must tell me.  I demand, and most solemnly I demand if in any way I am the cause of your unhappiness.  Do you not see my tears which I in vain strive against—­You hear unmoved my voice broken by sobs—­Feel how my hand trembles:  my whole heart is in the words I speak and you must not endeavour to silence me by mere words barren of meaning:  the agony of my doubt hurries me on, and you must reply.  I beseech you; by your former love for me now lost, I adjure you to answer that one question.  Am I the cause of your grief?”