“What? No? No?” he exclaimed, and with trembling hands he searched his breast-pocket and drew from it a bulky roll of banknotes. “No? This I stole—and this—and this—and this—because you, vampire that you are, needed money.”
“But I never told you to steal—”
“No, indeed; you never told me to steal. And where was I to get the money from? Where? Where?” So saying, he flung the banknotes in my face and they fell all over and around me. “You did not tell me to steal, no. But you wanted money, money, money. And now you have got it. Take it, take it, take it!”
I sobbed despairingly. “Oh, no, no, Donat! Have pity!”
“I have had pity,” he shouted. “I have always had pity—nothing but pity. You were ill and miserable and alone, and I left my home in order to stay with you. You wept, and I comforted you. You had no money, and I stole it for you. How could I have more pity?” He was himself in tears. “And now, because I am degraded and a criminal on your account, you leave me, you fling me aside and you marry an honest man. And I may go to perdition or to penal servitude.”
“Do not speak like that, I implore you.”
“Ah, but Countess Tarnowska, if I go to penal servitude, so shall you. I swear it. I am a thief and may become a murderer; but if I go to prison, you go too.” He collapsed upon the sofa and hid his face in his hands.
As I stood looking down upon him I saw as in a vision the somber road to ruin that this man had traversed for my sake, and I fell on my knees at his feet.
“Donat! Donat! Do not despair. Forgive me, forgive me! Go back, and return the money you have taken; go back and become an honest man again!”
He raised a haggard face in which his wild, bloodshot eyes seemed almost phosphorescent.