"My precious, my own darling Clara, you sob so, you make me most wretched."
"Mother, I will not cry any more;" neither did I, while she could see me.
"I need not tell you," she said, "what is that promise which I crave for your own dear sake."
"No, ma'am," I replied, "I know quite well what it is."
I saw that I had grieved her. How could I call her then anything else than "mother"?
"My mother dear, you wish me to promise this--that I will forego my revenge upon him who slew my father."
She bowed her head, with a look I cannot describe. In the harsh way I had put it, it seemed as if she were injuring both my father and me.
"Had you asked me anything else, although it were sin against God and man (if you could ask such a thing)--I would have pledged myself to it, as gladly as I would die--die, at least, if my task were done. But this, this one thing only--to abandon what I live for, what I was born to do, to be a traitor to my own father and you--I implore you, mother, by Him whose glory is on you now, do not ask me this."
Her face in its sadness and purity made me bury my eyes and forget things.
"Then I must die, and leave my only child possessed with a murderer's spirit!"