"My child!" he exclaimed, his voice breaking. "Forgive me for making you unhappy without knowing it. I was thinking of your future; I wanted you to be happy. How could I permit you to marry a native; how could I see you an unhappy wife and a miserable mother? I could not get your love out of your head, and I opposed it with all my strength. All that I have done has been for you, for you alone. If you had become his wife, you would have wept afterward on account of the condition of your husband, exposed to all kinds of vengeance, without any means of defense. As a mother, you would have wept over the fortune of your sons; if you educated them, you would prepare a sad future for them, you would have made them enemies of the Church and would have seen them hanged or exiled; if you left them ignorant, you would have seen them oppressed and degraded. I could not consent to it! This is why I sought as a husband for you one who might make you the happy mother of sons born not to obey but to command, not to suffer but to punish. I knew that your friend was good from infancy. I liked him as I had liked his father, but I hated them both when I saw that they were going to make you unhappy, because I love you, I idolize you, I love you as my daughter. I have nothing dearer than you. I have seen you grow. No hour passes but I think of you; I dream of you; you are my only joy." And Father Dámaso began to weep like a child. "Well, then, if you love me do not make me eternally unhappy. He no longer lives; I want to be a nun." The old man rested his head on his hand. "To be a nun, to be a nun!" he repeated. "You do not know, my child, the life, the misery, which is hidden behind the walls of the convent. You do not know it! I prefer a thousand times to see you unhappy in the world than to see you unhappy in the cloister. Here your complaints can be heard, there you will have only the walls. You are beautiful, very beautiful, and you were not born for it, you were not born to be the bride of Christ! Believe me, my child, time will blot it all out. Later you will forget, you will love your husband ... Linares." "Either the convent or ... death!" repeated Maria Clara. "The convent, the convent or death!" exclaimed Father Dámaso. "Maria, I am already old, I will not be able to watch you or your happiness much longer.... Choose another course, seek another love, another young man, whoever he may be, but not the convent." "The convent or death!" "My God, my God!" cried the priest, covering his head with his hands. "Thou punisheth me. So be it! But watch over my child." And turning to the young woman: "You want to be a nun? You shall be one. I do not want you to die." Maria Clara took his two hands, clasped them in her own and kissed them as she knelt. "Godfather, my godfather!" she repeated. Immediately, Father Dámaso went out, sad, with drooping head and sighing.