"I will obey," replied Annunciata.
"Convey my orders to your daughter. At dinner bring me the key of her room. Go."
Madame Van Amberg found Christine alone, seated on her bed, and exhausted by long weeping. Her beautiful face, at times so energetic, wore an expression of profound and touching dejection. Her long hair fell in disorder on her shoulders, her figure was bent, as if weighed down by grief: her rosary had fallen from her half-open hand; she had tried to obey her mother and to pray, but had been able only to weep. Her black mantle, still damp with rain, lay upon a table, a few willow sprays peeping from its silken folds. Christine eyed them with mingled love and melancholy. She thought it a century since she saw the sun rise on the river, on the old trees, and on Herbert's skiff. Her mother slowly approached her.
"My child," said she, "where were you at daybreak this morning?"
Christine raised her eyes to her mother's face, looked at her, but did not answer. Annunciata repeated her question without change of word or tone. Then Christine let herself slide from the bed to the ground, and kneeled before her mother.
"I was seated," she said, "upon the trunk of a willow that overhangs the stream. I was near Herbert's boat."
"Christine!" exclaimed Madame Van Amberg, "can it be true? Oh, my child, could you so infringe the commands laid upon you! Could you thus forget my lessons and advice! Christine, you thought not of me when you committed that fault!"
"Herbert said to me, 'Come, you shall be my wife, I will love you eternally, you shall be free and happy; all is ready for our marriage and our flight; come!' I replied, 'I will not leave my mother!' Mother, you have been my safeguard; if it be a crime to follow Herbert, it is the thought of you alone that prevented my committing it. I would not leave my mother!"
A beam of joy illumined Annunciata's countenance. Murmuring a thanksgiving to God, she raised her kneeling child and seated her by her side.