“I curse the hour in which I was born to such a destiny.”

He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating: “Curse the hour? Curse the hour?”

“How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, O father, what have you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here!”

She struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom.

“If it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save me from the void in which my whole life sinks. I did not mean to say this; but, father, you remember the last time we conversed in this room?”

He had been so wholly unprepared for what he heard now, that it was with difficulty he answered, “Yes, Louisa.”