"Oh! do not speak so, do not speak so, quarrels between Argentines and Spaniards are bad enough, but between father and son they are far worse. Your father has done this out of his care for you; perhaps he is now in danger. You must forgive him and help him."
"What can I do if he joins himself with the enemies of my country? Am I to be a traitor to my country for his sake?"
"Nevertheless he is your father. Where is he? Perhaps in prison."
"I wished to avoid this, he stopped me, and said my scheme was folly. They have commenced it, and now we shall have civil war here in America, with my father on one side, I on the other. I see nothing but misery in the future."
"Have you no faith in God? Mr Gordon told me that you used to study the Bible, yet you seem to despair; he who has faith in God can never despair."
"For months I have not opened the Bible. I begin to believe that there is no God."
"But you did believe there was a God once. You read the Bible and learned lessons of faith from it, have you forgotten them already? When the English came you did your duty, though you said yourself that there was no hope of beating them. Have you less courage now than then? Can you not do your duty and leave the result to God?"
Then Marcelino looked up at Magdalen in surprise, he had never heard her speak so before; her voice was low, and there was a sweet tremulousness in her tones which showed that there was a deep earnestness in what she said. Again he took her hand in his, leaning upon the arm of her chair.
"Do you ever read the Bible?" he asked.
"Every day; my mother taught me when I was quite a little girl in England, and papa promised her that I should always read it. When I came here to live with papa he told me what he had promised my mother for me, and he gave me her Bible which he had kept for me. Every day I read it now."