One morning my mother came into my room, and sitting at the head of the bed, from which I had not yet emerged, she said to me:
–This cannot be: you must not go on living like this; I am not satisfied.
As I kept silent, he continued:
–What you do is not what your father has required; it is much more; and your conduct is cruel to us, and more cruel to Maria. I was persuaded that your frequent walks were for the purpose of going to Luisa's, on account of the affection they have for you there; but Braulio, who came yesterday evening, let us know that he had not seen you for five days. What is it that causes you this deep sadness, which you cannot control even in the few moments you spend in society with the family, and which makes you constantly seek solitude, as if it were already troublesome for you to be with us?
Her eyes were filled with tears.
–Mary, madam," I replied, "he must be entirely free to accept or not to accept the lot which Charles offers him; and I, as his friend, must not delude him in the hopes which he must rightly entertain of being accepted.
Thus I revealed, without being able to help it, the most unbearable pain that had tormented me since the night I heard of the proposal of the gentlemen of M***. The doctor's fatal prognoses of Maria's illness had become nothing to me before that proposal; nothing the necessity of being separated from her for many years to come.
–How could you have imagined such a thing? -She has only seen your friend twice, once when he was here for a few hours, and once when we went to visit his family.
–But, dear me, there is little time left for what I have thought to be justified or to vanish. It seems to me to be well worth waiting for.
–You are very unjust, and you will regret having been so. Mary, out of dignity and duty, knowing herself better than you do, conceals how much your conduct is making her suffer. I can hardly believe my eyes; I am astonished to hear what you have just said; I, who thought to give you a great joy, and to remedy all by letting you know what Mayn told us yesterday at parting!
–Say it, say it," I begged, sitting up.
–What's the point?
–Won't she always be… won't she always be my sister?
–Or can a man be a gentleman and do what you do? No, no; that is not for a son of mine to do! Your sister! And you forget that you are saying it to one who knows you better than you know yourself! Your sister! And I know that she has loved you ever since she slept you both on my knee! And it is now that you believe it? now that I came to speak to you about it, frightened by the suffering that the poor thing tries uselessly to conceal from me.
–I would not, for one instant, give you cause for such a displeasure as you let me know. Tell me what I am to do to remedy what you have found reprehensible in my conduct.
–Don't you want me to love her as much as I love you?
–Yes, ma'am; and it is, isn't it?
–It will be so, though I had forgotten that she has no mother but me, and Solomon's recommendations, and the confidence he thought me worthy; for she deserves it, and loves you so much. The doctor assures us that Mary's malady is not the one that Sara suffered.
–Did he say so?
–Yes; your father, reassured on that score, wanted me to let you know.
–So can I go back to being with her as I was before? -I asked in a maddened way.
