"When you submit, and promise to obey; when you no longer seek him you are forbidden to see, and whom you must forget. My daughter, it is your duty."
"Oh mother, I thought your heart could better understand what it never felt. I thought you respected the true sentiments of the soul, and that your lips knew not how to utter the word 'forget.' If I forgot, I should be a mere silly child, capricious, unruly, unworthy your tenderness. If my malady is without remedy, I am a steadfast woman, suffering and self-sacrificing. Good God! how is it you do not understand that?"
"I understand," murmured Annunciata, but in so low a tone that she was sure her daughter could not hear her.
"Mother," resumed Christine, "go to my father! summon up that courage which fails you when you alone are concerned; speak boldly to him, tell him what I have told you; demand my liberty, my happiness."
"I!" exclaimed Annunciata in terror; "I brave M. Van Amberg, and oppose his will!"
"Not oppose, but supplicate! compel his heart to understand what mine experiences; force him to see and hear and feel that my life may cease, but not my love. Who can do it, if you cannot? I am a captive. My sisters know not love, my uncle William has never known it. It needs a woman's voice to express a woman's feelings."
"Christine, you know not what you ask. The effort is above my strength."
"I ask a proof of my mother's love; I am sure she will give it me."
"I shall die in so doing. M. Van Amberg can kill me by a word."
Christine started and trembled. "Do not go, then, dearest mother. Forgive my egotism; I thought only of myself. If my father has such terrible power, avoid his anger. I will wait, and entreat none but God."