Balsamo gave him a look of sadness and pity.
“You are right, boy: I am the cause of your crime and the girl’s misfortune. I should repair my omission. Do you love her?”
“Before possessing her, I loved with madness: now with fury. I should die with grief if she repulsed me; with joy if she forgave me.”
“She is nobly born but poor,” mused the count: “her brother has a heart and is not vain about his rank. What would happen if you asked the brother for the sister’s hand?”
“He would kill me. But as I wish death more than I fear it, I will make the demand if you advise it.”
“You have brains and heart though your deed was guilt, my complicity apart. There is a Taverney the father. Tell him that you bring a fortune to his daughter the day when she marries you and he may assent. But he would not believe you. Here is the solid inducement.”
He opened a table drawer and counted out thirty Treasury notes for ten thousand livres each.
“Is this possible?” cried Gilbert, brightening: “such generosity is too sublime.”
“You are distrustful. Right; and but discriminate in distrust.”
He took a pen and wrote: