"And if I have never been, who is to blame for it but you? Did you ever show me the love which a child is justified in demanding of a father? Have you ever done anything to make the life you gave me worth while? Did my industry ever wrest from you a word of praise? Did what I accomplished ever draw from you a word of recognition? Did you not rather do everything to humiliate me in my own eyes, to make me smaller than I really was, to make me dislike my art, to make me feel that in your eyes I was not and never could be an artist? Am I to blame that you never considered all this anything better than a big play house, which you bought for me to dally and play away my useless time in? And now--now you come to wrest from me my love, simply because your pride demands it, simply because it offends you that such a useless, lowly creature can ever have a will of its own, can wish something different from what you wish? But you are mistaken, Father! I am, in spite of all that, your daughter. You can cast me off, you can drive me into misery as you can crush me with a hammer, because you are the stronger; my love you cannot tear away from me!" "I can, and I will!" "Try it!" "The attempt and success are one. Do you wish to become the mistress of Lieutenant von Werben?" "What has that question to do with my love?" "Then I will put it in another form: Have you the courage to wish to be like those wretched foolish creatures who give themselves up to a man, out of wedlock or in wedlock--for wedlock does not change matters--for any other prize than the love which they take in exchange for their love? Von Werben has nothing to give in exchange; von Werben does not love you." Ferdinande laughed with scorn.--"And he came to you, knowing that you hated him and his whole family with a blind hatred, in order to tell you this?" "He could not come; his father had to do the difficult errand for him, for which he had not the courage, for which his father had to enforce the permission of his son." "That is----" "It is not a lie! By my oath! And still more: He did not even go of his own will to his father; he would not have done it today, he would perchance never have done it, if his father had been content with asking him whether it was true, what the sparrows chatter from the roof and the blackmailers wrote to the unsuspecting father anonymously, that Lieutenant von Werben has a sweetheart beyond the garden-wall or--how do I know!" "Show me the letters!" "Here is one of them; the General will be glad to let you have the other, no doubt; I do not think the son will lay claim to it." Ferdinande read the letter. She had considered it certain that Antonio alone could have been the betrayer; but this letter was not by Antonio--could not be by him. Then other eyes than the passionate jealous eyes of the Italian had looked into the secret. Her cheeks, still pale, flared with outraged modesty.--"Who wrote the letter?"