Nela, whose intuition gathered the purport of this speech, though the words were beyond her, was deeply impressed. She kept her eyes fixed on Teodoro Golfin's rugged, shrewd, and expressive countenance. Her heart was full of astonishment and gratitude.
"Still there is a mystery about you," the dusky, leonine doctor went on: "The most perfect opportunity was offered you to escape from your miserable lot, and you refused it. Florentina, who is an angel if ever there was one, was ready to adopt you as a friend and a sister; I never knew an instance of greater kindness and generosity.—And what have you done? Fled from her like a wild thing.—This is sheer ingratitude—or some other feeling which I cannot at all comprehend."
"No, no, no," cried Nela, much distressed, "I am not ungrateful. I adore Señorita Florentina; she seems to me not to be made of flesh and blood like the rest of us; I do not deserve even to look upon her...."
"Well, my child, you may mean what you say; but from your behavior we can only conclude that you are ungrateful—most ungrateful...."
"No, no," sobbed Nela. "I am not, indeed I am not ungrateful. I was afraid—I knew—that you would all think me ungrateful, and that was the only thing that troubled me when I was going to kill myself.—But I am so stupid; I did not know how to ask pardon of the Señorita before I ran away, nor how to explain it all."
"I will make your peace with Florentina; and even if you wish never to see her again, I will undertake to tell her and convince her that you were not ungrateful. Now, open your heart to me and tell me everything; what makes you so miserable and desperate? However wretched a human being may be—however great his misery and loneliness, he does not take his own life unless he has some overpowering reason for hating it."
"No, Señor—so it seems to me."
"Then you hate your life?"
Nela was silent for a minute. Then, crossing her arms, she exclaimed vehemently.