“I have told you what I desire. You have heard it, and that is enough.”
He was turning to leave the room, when his daughter held him back.
“Father,” she said, “listen to me.”
“Well, what is it, now?”
“Yesterday you threatened to shut me up.”
“Well?”
“To-day it is I who beseech you to do so. Send me to a convent. However harsh and strict the rules may be, however sad life may be there, I will find there some relief for my sorrow, and I will bless you with all my heart.”
He only shrugged his shoulders over and over again; then he said,—
“A good idea! And from your convent you would at once write to everybody and everywhere, that my wife had turned you out of the house; that you had been obliged to escape from threats and bad treatment; you would repeat all the well-known elegies of the innocent young girl who is persecuted by a wicked stepmother. Not so, my dear, not so!”
The breakfast-bell, which was ringing below, interrupted him.