“Is she at home?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Since,” replied Frederick, “this poor child cannot yet go home, it would be a great consolation for her to see her mother; if the curate of this village does not return before I go to church, I beg you will desire him to send some prudent person to bring the good woman hither.”
“Perhaps I had better go myself,” said Don Abbondio.
“No, no; I have other employment for you.”
“Her mother,” resumed Don Abbondio, “is a very sensitive woman, and it will require a good deal of discretion to prepare her for the meeting.”
“That is the reason that I have named some prudent person. You, however, will be more useful elsewhere,” replied the cardinal. He could have added, had he not been deterred by a regard to the feelings of the Unknown—“This poor child needs much to behold some person whom she knows, after so many hours of alarm, and in such terrible uncertainty of the future.”
It appeared strange, however, that Don Abbondio should not have inferred it from his manner, or that he should not have thought so himself; the reluctance he evinced to comply with the request of the cardinal appeared so out of place, that the latter imagined there must be some secret cause for it. He looked at the curate attentively, and quickly discovering the fears of the poor man at becoming the companion of this formidable lord, or entering his abode, even for a few moments, he felt an anxiety to dissipate these terrors; and in order to do this, and not injure the feelings of his new friend by talking privately to Don Abbondio in his presence, he addressed his conversation to the Unknown himself, so that Don Abbondio might perceive by his answers, that he was no longer a man to be feared.
“Do not believe,” said he, “that I shall be satisfied with this visit to-day. You will return, will you not, in company with this worthy ecclesiastic?”
“Will I return!” replied the Unknown: “Oh! if ever you should refuse to see me, I would remain at your door as a beggar. I must talk to you, I must hear you, I must see you, I cannot do without you!”