“As you please,” said Raynal, coolly. “That is all fair, as you have been wronged. I shall make her an honest wife, and then you may make her an honest widow. (This is what they call LOVE, and sneer at me for keeping clear of it.) But neither he nor you shall keep MY SISTER what she is now, a ——,” and he used a word out of camp.
Edouard winced and groaned. “Oh! don’t call her by such a name. There is some mystery. She loved me once. There must have been some strange seduction.”
“Now you deceive yourself,” said Raynal. “I never saw a girl that could take her own part better than she can; she is not like her sister at all in character. Not that I excuse him; it was a dishonorable act, an ungrateful act to my wife and my mother.”
“And to you.”
“Now listen to me: in four days I shall stand before him. I shall not go into a pet like you; I am in earnest. I shall just say to him, ‘Dujardin, I know all!’ Then if he is guilty his face will show it directly. Then I shall say, ‘Comrade, you must marry her whom you have dishonored.’”
“He will not. He is a libertine, a rascal.”
“You are speaking of a man you don’t know. He WILL marry her and repair the wrong he has done.”
“Suppose he refuses?”
“Why should he refuse? The girl is not ugly nor old, and if she has done a folly, he was her partner in it.”
“But SUPPOSE he refuses?”