"Tell me one thing, pray."
"What?"
"Whence comes the interest you deign to show me?"
"Is the motive for a woman's actions ever known?"
"Oh, you are jesting with me, señora; that is wrong."
The strange lady sighed.
"No, Don Louis," she continued, "I am not jesting with you. What need that you should know me? Sufficient for you that I watch over you. Seek not for the motive."
"On the contrary, I am anxious to know it."
"Were I to tell you that I loved you, would you believe it, Don Louis?" she said, sorrowfully.
"Oh!" he said, with emotion, "I would pity you, madam, if you attached yourself to a wretched being like myself, whose life has only been one long suffering."