Oh, that he
may not have deceived me: he assures me that this new accident was
caused only by extreme weakness occasioned by the fastings, the fatigues,
and the privation of sleep which my daughter has imposed upon herself
during her novitiate. I believe him, because, in fact, her angelic
features, though of a frightful paleness, did not betray any suffering;
when she recovered her consciousness, I was even struck with the serenity
which shone on her forehead. It seems to me that she was concealing the
secret hope of an approaching deliverance. The superior having returned to
the chapter to close the session, I remained alone with my daughter.
"My good father, can you forget my ingratitude? Can you forget that, at the
moment I was about to make this painful confession, you asked me to spare
you!"
"Oh! do not speak of it, I supplicate you."
"And I had not dreamed," continued she, with bitterness, "that in saying,
in the face of all, from what an abyss of degradation you had drawn me, I
was revealing a secret that you had kept out of tenderness to me; it was to
accuse you publicly--you, my father--of a dissimulation to which you had
resigned yourself only to secure to me a brilliant and honored existence.
Oh! can you pardon me?"
Instead of answering her, I pressed my lips upon her forehead; she felt my
tears flow. After having kissed my hands several times, she said to me,
"Now I feel better, my good father, now that I am, as our rules says, here,
and dead to the world.
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