"Not a word more, my child; you are speaking of your father," interrupted Marie. "Embrace me more tenderly than ever; you have need of it, and so have I; but no recriminations of your father." "My God! mother, you did not hear what he said to M. Bridou?" "When your father said, 'Frederick will soon be seventeen?'" "Yes, and that man said to my father, 'It is a good age for us.'" "I, as well as you, my child, heard his words." "'A good age for us,'--what does he mean by that, mother?" "I do not know," replied the young woman, hoping to calm and reassure her son. "Perhaps we attach too much to these words,--more than they deserve." After a short silence, Frederick said to Marie, in an altered voice: "Listen to me, mother. Since you desire it, I shall always have that respect for my father which I owe to him, but I tell you frankly, understand me,--if my father thinks ever of separating me from you and M. David--" "Frederick!" cried the young woman, alarmed at the desperate resolution she read in her son's countenance, "why suppose what is impossible--to separate us! to take you out of the hands of M. David, and that, too, at a time when-- But no, I repeat, your father has too much reason, too much good sense, to conceive such an idea." "May Heaven hear you, mother, but I swear to you, and you know my will is firm, that no human power shall separate me from you and M. David, and that I will boldly say to my father. Let him respect our affection, our indissoluble ties, and I will bless him; but if he dares to put his hand on our happiness--" "My son!" "Oh, mother! our happiness, it is your life, and your life I will defend against my father himself, you understand." "My God! my God! Frederick, I beseech you!" "Oh, let him take care! let him take care! two or three times this evening my blood revolted against his words." "Stop, Frederick, do not speak so; you will make me insane. Why, then, oh, my God! will you predict such painful, or rather, such impossible things! You only terrify yourself and render yourself desperate." "Very well, mother, we will wait; but believe me, the frightful calmness of my father when he learned of the sale of the silver hides something. We expected to see him burst forth into a passion, but he remained impassible, he became pale. I never saw him so pale, mother," said Frederick, embracing his mother with an expression of tenderness and alarm. "Mother, I am chilled to the heart, some danger threatens us." "Frederick," replied the young woman, with a tone of agonising reproach, "you frighten me terribly, and after all, your father will act according to his own will." "And I also, mother, I will have mine."