ad and pressing it between them with the gesture indicative of
desperation, "is it possible that I deserve such atrocious insults?
Pepe, my son, is it you who speak to me in this way? If I have done what
you say, I am indeed very wicked."

She sank on the sofa and covered her face with her hands. Pepe,
approaching her slowly, saw that his aunt was sobbing bitterly and
shedding abundant tears. In spite of his conviction he could not
altogether conquer the feeling of compassion which took possession of
him; and while he condemned himself for his cowardice he felt something
of remorse for the severity and the frankness with which he had spoken.

"My dear aunt," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder, "if you
answer me with tears and sighs, you will not convince me. Proofs, not
emotions, are what I require. Speak to me, tell me that I am mistaken
in thinking what I think; then prove it to me, and I will acknowledge my
error."

"Leave me, you are not my brother's son! If you were, you would not
insult me as you have insulted me. So, then, I am an intriguer, an
actress, a hypocritical harpy, a domestic plotter?"

As she spoke, Dona Perfecta uncovered her face and looked at her nephew
with a martyr-like expression. Pepe was perplexed. The tears as well
as the gentle voice of his father's sister could not be insignificant
phenomena for the mathematician's soul. Words crowded to his lips to
ask her pardon. A man of great firmness generally, any appeal to his
emotions, any thing which touched his heart, converted him at once into
a child. Weaknesses of a mathematician! It is said that Newton was the
same.

"I will give you the proofs you ask," said Dona Perfecta, motioning
him to a seat beside her. "I will give you satisfaction. You shall see
whether I am kind, whether I am indulgent, whether I am humble. Do you
think that I am going to contradict you; to deny absolutely the acts of
which you have accused me? Well, then, no; I do not deny them."

The engineer was astounded.

"I do not deny them," continued Dona Perfecta. "What I deny is the evil
intention which you attribute to them. By what right do you undertake to
judge of what you know only from appearances and by conjecture? Have you
the supreme intelligence which is necessary to judge justly the actions
of others and pronounce sentence upon them? Are you God, to know the
intentions?"

Pepe was every moment more amazed.

"Is it not allowable at times to employ