"When my brother married you, how great was my misery—what sleepless nights, what days of anguish! yet how did I labour for your happiness? Now I may tell you:—Know then, my father never allowed you one shilling; I invented that tale to spare your delicacy, that you might not feel yourself too much obliged to me; but could I do too much for the woman I adored? During my father's illness I laboured with uncommon zeal to procure a settlement for you, to procure a pardon for my brother. I ventured to brave his utmost resentment by taking him into the next room (not thinking his death so very near) in the hope of having him revoke that dreadful curse he had laid upon him; but, alas! he died, and all my endeavours were fruitless."
"How!" exclaimed she, "Did he not see his father? Did he not forgive him on his death-bed?"
"No," he replied, "he never saw the Count after the day your marriage was discovered."
