The deep earnestness with which these words were spoken, did not fail of their effect on Frida; but she said, with a shake of the head--
"I am, and must remain a stranger to him. You have yourself forbidden me to let him suspect anything of our circumstances."
"Certainly I have, for if he now discovered the truth he would most likely repulse you with the utmost harshness; your obstinacy is equal to his, and thus all would be lost. But at least you must approach him. As yet you have scarcely spoken together. No voice rises in your heart, you say. But it must rise in you, in him, and it will rise when you have learnt to stand face to face together."
"I will try!" said Frida, with a deep sigh. "But if I fail, if I only meet with harshness and suspicion"--
"You must remember that he is a man much sinned against," interrupted Gustave, "so much, that he has a right to look with mistrust and suspicion on all, and to draw back where another would lovingly open wide his arms. You are innocent, you suffer for the faults of others; but all the weight, poor child, falls on you."
The girl made no reply, but two hot tears rolled down her cheeks, while she rested her head on the speaker's shoulder. He stroked her forehead softly and soothingly.
"Poor child! Yes, it is hard, at your age, when all should be joy and sunshine, to be already so deeply plunged in hatred and disunion, in the whole misery of human life. It has been hard enough to me to reveal all this to you; but it entered with such force into your life that it was imperative for you to know it. And my Frida does not belong to the weak and vacillating, she has something of the energy, and, alas, something of the hardness of a certain other nature. So bravely forwards, we must conquer in the end!"
Frida dried her tears and forced a smile.
"You are right! I am so ungrateful and stubborn towards you, who have done so much for me! You are"--
"The best and noblest of men"--interrupted Gustave, "naturally I am, and it is very extraordinary that Miss Clifford will not recognise my perfections, though you have so touchingly assured her of them. But now go out in the air for a few minutes. You look flushed and tearful, and you must do away with these signs of excitement. Meanwhile, I will wait here for Jessie. We have not had one dispute to-day, and a wrangle has become one of the necessities of life to me, which I cannot do without."