“To the devil, for all I care.”
“Monsieur, I hold your wretchedness an excuse, even if you have been careless of——”
He caught me up, staring at me woefully.
“Careless? but, my God! I have pampered and maintained her ever since her brown head was a crutch to my fingers; and this is how she repays me.”
“What has she done?”
“She has condemned me to beggary for a prudish sentiment—me, in my old forlorn age. From the first I saw that the test might come—that she might be called upon to employ the privileges of her sex on my behalf. Free-thought, free-love! Bah! What are they but a self-adaptation to the ever-changing conditions of life. The spirit need not subscribe to such mere necessities of being; and a little gratitude at least was due to me. She has none, and for that may God strike her dead!”
“What has she done?”
“Done!” (His voice rose to a shriek again.) “But, what has she not?—That scoundrel Lacombe would have exchanged me my riches—my pitiful show of tankards that he had unearthed—for her favour. She would not; she refused to go with him; she reviled and cursed me—me that had been her bulwark against poverty.”
“You would have sold her honour for your brazen pots?”
“Gold and silver, monsieur; and it was only a question of temporary accommodation. In a few months she might have returned, and all would have been well again. But honour—bah! it will survive a chin-chuck better than loss of wealth. But she would not. She escaped from us by a lying ruse, and they sought her far and near without avail. At the last they robbed and maltreated me, and for that may hell seize them and fester in their bones!”