"Because it is only the truth. I am ill; dying of a nervous illness. My blindness, which came on when I was three years old, is only the result of this disease, which I doubtless inherited from my father. When I was eight years old, and had a very bad illness, my parents called in two doctors, and one said to the other as they went out--they said it in a whisper, and probably did not intend me to hear, but they did not know how sharp my hearing is--it would be a miracle if the child lived to be sixteen. I shall be sixteen next spring, and--I do not believe in miracles." "Doctors often make mistakes; I hope they have made one in your case." "I do not hope it--I do not wish it." "But you love life." "Only because I know that I must die soon, as you all say that I think the world so beautiful only because I am blind. And when my dear father is gone, whom shall I have to live for?" "For your friends--myself, for example; for Justus, whom you love, and who loves you." "Who loves me?" The blind girl's sweet mouth quivered. She drew two or three deep breaths, but the tears would not be kept back; they streamed from the poor blind eyes, and trickled through the slender white fingers with which she tried to hide them. "Cilli! Cilli! what is the matter?" exclaimed Reinhold, seized with a painful foreboding. "Nothing, nothing," murmured the blind girl. "You see yourself that I am ill--very ill. Hark! whose is that strange step in the courtyard?" Reinhold looked up and recognised Philip, who came rapidly along the walk in search of him without looking into the arbour. He could not bear the idea of being found here by Philip at this moment, he must therefore make up his mind to leave Cilli, who herself implored him to go. "Leave me! leave me! before you I am not ashamed of my tears. You alone may see me weep." It was high time. Philip had already turned back and came towards him. "Where the devil have you been? I have been looking for you in your room, and all over the place." "Your interview with your father cannot have lasted long." Philip laughed bitterly. "As if it were possible to talk to him! But I swear this shall be the last time. No man in the world would endure it if he were a hundred times his father." Philip was furious; he stormed at his father's blindness and obstinacy. From what he could gather about the course of the interview, Reinhold could not quite justify his uncle, but he could not let pass the outrageous expressions of which the angry man made use.