Mme. Deschap. Nobly! Are you mad, girl? I have no patience with you— to disgrace all your family thus! Nobly! Oh you abominable, hardened, pitiful, mean, ugly villain!
Damas. Ugly! Why he was beautiful yesterday!
Pauline. Madame, this is his roof, and he is my husband. Respect your daughter, or let blame fall alone on her.
Mme. Deschap. You—you—Oh, I’m choking.
M. Deschap. Sir, it were idle to waste reproach upon a conscience like yours—you renounce all pretensions to the person of this lady?
Mel. I do. [Gives a paper.] Here is my consent to a divorce—my full confession of the fraud which annuls the marriage. Your daughter has been foully wronged—I grant it, sir; but her own lips will tell you that, from the hour in which she crossed this threshold, I returned to my own station, and respected hers. Pure and inviolate, as when yestermorn you laid your hand upon her head, and blessed her, I yield her back to you. For myself—I deliver you for ever from my presence. An outcast and a criminal, I seek some distant land, where I may mourn my sin, and pray for your daughter’s peace. Farewell—farewell to you all, for ever!
Willow. Claude, Claude, you will not leave your poor old mother? She does not disown you in your sorrow no, not even in your guilt. No divorce can separate a mother from her son.
Pauline. This poor widow teaches me my duty. No, mother,—no, for you are now my mother also!—nor should any law, human or divine, separate the wife from her husband’s sorrows. Claude—Claude—all is forgotten forgiven—I am thine for ever!
Mme. Deschap. What do I hear?—Come away, or never see my face again.
M. Deschap. Pauline, we never betrayed you!—do you forsake us for him?