"Do not give me so much credit, my child," replied Agatha. "Innocent as I was, I had no claim to share in the general happiness. I was borne down by a fatality which all my efforts had succeeded only in making more burdensome. By denying myself love, I was simply fulfilling the plainest duty that honor imposes upon a woman. So, too, in becoming a sister of charity I obeyed the imperative outcry of my conscience. I had been unfortunate; I knew unhappiness by personal experience; I was no longer one of those who can refuse to credit the sufferings of others because they have never suffered themselves. I may, perhaps, have done good without judgment; at all events, I have done it without remission and with the utmost zeal. But, in my eyes, to do good does not amount to so much as is generally supposed. To do good in this way is simply not to do evil; not to be selfish means simply that one is not blind nor detestable. I have such unbounded pity for those who are vain of their good works, that I have hidden mine almost as sedulously as I kept the secret of my marriage and your birth. My character has never been understood. I did not wish that it should be. So that I have no right to complain of having been misjudged." "Ah! but I know you," said Michel, "and my heart will repay you a hundredfold for all the happiness of which you have been deprived." "I know it," she replied. "Your tears prove it, and I feel it; for, since you have been with me, I should have forgotten that I had ever been unhappy, if I had not had my story to tell you." "Thank you, mother, but do not say that you leave me at liberty to do as I please. I am only a child, and I feel so insignificant beside you that I never desire to see anything except through your eyes, or to act except by your orders. I will help you to carry the burden of wealth and of almsgiving, but I will be your man of business--nothing more. I, a rich man and a prince! I, endowed with any sort of authority when you are here! when I am your son!" "My child, you must be a man. I have not had the happiness of bringing you up; I could have done it no better than worthy Pier-Angelo. It is my business now to love you--nothing more--and that is enough. To justify my love, you will not need to have your ancestors' portraits say to you: '_I am not pleased with you_.'--You will so conduct yourself that your mother will always say to you: '_I am pleased with you_.' But listen, Michel! the bells are tolling; all the bells in the city are tolling the knell of a dying man, and it must be some great personage. It is your kinsman--your enemy--Cardinal Palmarosa, who is about to be called to account by God for his crimes. It is daylight, and we must part. Go and pray to God to be merciful to him. I go to receive his last breath!" XLVI GLADNESS OF HEART