Maria Clara saw him stop on discovering her, but it was for only a moment. The man advanced slowly and at about three steps from the maiden, stopped again. Maria Clara stepped back. "Crisostomo!" she gasped, full of terror. "Yes, I am Crisostomo!" replied the young man, in a grave voice. "An enemy, a man who has good reason to hate me, Elias, has helped me out of the prison into which my friends had thrown me." Silence followed these words. Maria Clara bowed her head and allowed both her hands to drop at her side. Ibarra continued: "Beside the dead body of my mother, I swore to make you happy, whatever might be my destiny. You can break your oath; she was not your mother. But I, who am her son, I hold her memory sacred, and, running great risk, I have come here to fulfill my oath. Fortune permits me to speak with you personally. Maria, we shall not see each other again. You are young and perhaps some day your conscience may accuse you.... I come to tell you, before leaving, that I forgive you. Now, may you be happy, and good-bye!" Ibarra tried to leave, but the maiden stopped him. "Crisostomo!" she said. "God has sent you to save me from desperation.... Hear me and judge me!" Ibarra wished to withdraw gently from her. "I have not come," said he, "to call you to account.... I have come to give you peace." "I do not want the peace which you give me. I will give myself peace. You despise me, and your contempt will make my life bitter till death." Ibarra saw the poor girl's desperation, and asked her what she desired. "That you may believe that I have always loved you." Crisostomo smiled bitterly. "Ah! You doubt me, you doubt the friend of your infancy, who has never hidden a single thought from you," exclaimed she in grief. "I understand you. When you know my history, the history which they revealed to me during my illness, you will pity me and you will no longer answer my grief with that bitter smile. Why did you not let me die in the hands of my ignorant doctor? You and I would have been happier then." Maria Clara rested a moment and then continued: "You have doubted me; you have wished my mother to pardon me. During one of those nights of suffering, a man revealed to me the name of my true father, and forbade me to love you ... unless my true father should pardon you for the offense you committed against him." Ibarra recoiled and looked in terror at the maiden. "Yes," she continued. "This man told me that he could not permit our marriage, since his conscience would not allow it, and he would find himself compelled to publish the truth at the risk of causing a great scandal, because my father is ..." And she whispered a name in the young man's ear in a scarcely audible voice. "What was I to do? Ought I to sacrifice to my love the memory of my mother, the honor of the man who innocently supposes himself my father, and the good name of my real father? Could I do that without you despising me for it?"