A little color came into her
cheeks; she followed you hungrily with her eyes as you were
carried off; then she signed to me, and it was my hand that
brushed away her tears.
"Immediately afterward she began to speak, with wonderful
will and self-control, and she asked me that till you were
grown up and knowledge became inevitable, I should tell you
nothing. There was to be no talk of her, no picture of her,
no letters. As far as possible, during your childhood and
youth, she was to be to you as though she had never existed.
What her thought was exactly she was too feeble to explain;
nor was her mind strong enough to envisage all the
consequences--to me, as well as to you--of what she proposed.
No doubt it tortured her to think of you as growing up under
the cloud of her name and fate, and with her natural and
tragic impetuosity she asked what she did.
"'One day--there will come some one--who will love her--in
spite of me. Then you and he--shall tell her.'
"I pointed out to her that such a course would mean that I
must change my name and live abroad.
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