"What is your daughter's illness?" asked Godefroid, in a persuasive and sympathetic voice.
"A terrible disease to which physicians give various names, but it has, in truth, no name.My fortune is lost," he added, with one of those despairing gestures made only by the wretched."The little money that I had,--for in 1830 I was cast from a high position,--in fact, all that I possessed, was soon used by on my daughter's illness; her mother, too, was ruined by it, and finally her husband.To-day the pension I receive from the government barely suffices for the actual necessities of my poor, dear, saintly child.The faculty of tears has left me; I have suffered tortures.Monsieur, I must be granite not to have died.But no, God had kept alive the father that the child might have a nurse, a providence.Her poor mother died of the strain.Ah!
you have come, young man, at a moment when the old tree that never yet has bent feels the axe--the axe of poverty, sharpened by sorrow--at his roots.Yes, here am I, who never complain, talking to you of this illness so as to prevent you from coming to the house; or, if you still persist, to implore you not to trouble our peace.Monsieur, at this moment my daughter barks like a dog, day and night.""Is she insane?" asked Godefroid.