This letter affected Matilda greatly; she remembered the care he had taken of her youth, though she shuddered when she considered him as the murderer of her father. "Unhappy man, (cried she) may God afford him penitence and peace in this life, and endless happiness in the world to come!" She promised the Marquis to write an answer the following morning, and he undertook to enclose it.
She joined her friends; but the letter had given so melancholy a turn to her thoughts, that every one took notice of her dejection; and judging it to arise from another cause, every one was anxious to dispel it, and raise her spirits.
At supper they all met. Matilda glanced her eyes once towards the Count, and observed joy seemed to animate his whole frame; from thence she derived hope, that he was not very displeasing to her mother.
