"
"Father, you frighten me when you look at me in that way. Don't weigh
such different feelings in the same scales. I had a husband before I
knew that my father was living--"
"If your husband was the first to lay kisses on your forehead, I was
the first to drop tears upon it," replied Ferragus. "But don't feel
frightened, Clemence, speak to me frankly. I love you enough to
rejoice in the knowledge that you are happy, though I, your father,
may have little place in your heart, while you fill the whole of
mine."
"Ah! what good such words do me! You make me love you more and more,
though I seem to rob something from my Jules. But, my kind father,
think what his sufferings are. What may I tell him to-day?"
"My child, do you think I waited for your letter to save you from this
threatened danger? Do you know what will become of those who venture
to touch your happiness, or come between us? Have you never been aware
that a second providence was guarding your life? Twelve men of power
and intellect form a phalanx round your love and your existence,
--ready to do all things to protect you. Think of your father, who has
risked death to meet you in the public promenades, or see you asleep
in your little bed in your mother's home, during the night-time. Could
such a father, to whom your innocent caresses give strength to live
when a man of honor ought to have died to escape his infamy, could
_I_, in short, I who breathe through your lips, and see with your
eyes, and feel with your heart, could I fail to defend with the claws
of a lion and the soul of a father, my only blessing, my life, my
daughter? Since the death of that angel, your mother, I have dreamed
but of one thing,--the happiness of pressing you to my heart in the
face of the whole earth, of burying the convict,--" He paused a
moment, and then added: "--of giving you a father, a father who could
press without shame your husband's hand, who could live without fear
in both your hearts, who could say to all the world, 'This is my
daughter,'--in short, to be a happy father.
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