did she not leave me? Let her follow her own path."

"She left you from impulses of that instinct which all healthy beings
possess. That instinct for the preservation of the species, which
poetry beautifies and which it calls 'Love.' If she had left you after
receiving the blessing of a man before an altar, you would have been
delighted, and would have received her with open arms whenever she
came to see you. She left you to be deceived, to fall into misery and
shame, and, seeing her so unhappy, does she not deserve more pity at
your hands than if you saw her living happily? Reflect, Esteban, on
the way in which your poor daughter fell. What had you taught her to
enable her to defend herself from the evil in the world? How was she
armed to preserve intact what you call honour? You and your wife had
set her the example of the respect due to wealth and high birth by
allowing that young man to come to your house, thinking it an honour
that a gentleman should have fallen in love with your daughter. When
the inevitable results of social inequality came about she could not
give him up; she had one of those noble natures that rise in revolt
against the prejudices of the world, even at the risk of suffering all
the bitterness of their rebellion, and she fell vanquished. Whom can
you blame? Her ignorance, her life of isolation from the world, or
yourselves who never taught her better, and who, blinded by ambition,
let her wander to the edge of the precipice? Blame her less than
anybody. Unhappy girl! She has paid with interest her noble defiance
of social prejudices. She has been vanquished in the social fight--a
corpse that has to be buried; and you, her father, ought to be the one
to fulfil that work of mercy."

Esteban, with his head bent, continued to make gestures of refusal.

"Brother," said Gabriel solemnly; "if you hold tenaciously to your
refusal I have only one thing more to say. If your daughter does not
return here, I must go. Everyone has his scruples; you fear the gossip
of the people; I fear myself and what my thoughts can throw in my face
in my solitary moments. Since I have been your guest I have thought
constantly of your daughter, and ever since I have known what happened
in this house I have proposed to myself that the unhappy victim should
return here. You will not let her return? Well then, I must go. I
should be a thief if I ate your bread while a creature who is flesh
of your flesh suffers hunger, or i