"I wish nothing more: speak. Clara, my child, go and give orders to have breakfast prepared, for I am dying of hunger."
The girl went out.
"Now it is our turn," Don Miguel continued. "In the first place, where are you wounded?"
"Oh! I have merely a slight scratch on my shoulder: if I went to bed it was more through indolence than any other motive."
"Hum! and what scratched your shoulder?"
"A bullet."
"What! A bullet! Then you must have fought a duel, unhappy boy!" Don Miguel exclaimed with a shudder.
The young man smiled, pressed his father's hand, and bending toward him, said,—
"This is what has happened."
"I am listening to you," Don Miguel replied, making an effort to calm himself.