"Vertua sank down, with both his hands before his face. The Chevalier ordered his servants to take the Strong box down to the carriage, and then cried out, in a domineering way, 'When are you going to make over your house and effects to me, Signor Vertua?'
"Vertua raised himself from the ground, saying, in a firm voice, 'At once. This very moment, Chevalier. Come with me.'
"'Good,' said the Chevalier, 'you may drive there with me. To-morrow you must leave it for good and all.'
"On the way neither of them spoke. When they came to the house in the Rue St. Honoré Vertua rang at the door, and a little old woman opened, and cried, when she saw him, 'Oh, saviour of the world, is it you at last, signor? Angela has been nearly dead with anxiety about you.'
"'Hush!' said Vertua. 'Heaven grant that Angela has not heard the unlucky bell. I don't want her to know that I have come.' He took the candle-holder from the amazed old woman's hand, and lighted the Chevalier up the staircase to the salon.
"'I am ready for everything,' said Vertua. 'You detest me and despise me. You ruin me for the gratification of yourself and others. But you do not know me. I will tell you, then, that I was once a gambler like yourself; that capricious fortune was as kind to me as to you; that I travelled over the half of Europe, stopping wherever high play and the expectation of large winnings attracted me to remain; that the gold in the banque which I kept was heaped up as mountain high as in your own. I had a devoted and beautiful wife, whom I neglected, who was miserable in the midst of the most marvellous wealth. It happened once, in Genoa, when I had started my banque there, that a young Roman lost all his great fortune to me. As I begged of you to-day, he begged of me that I would lend him as much money as would, at all events, take him to Rome. I refused, with scornful laughter, and in his despair he thrust his stiletto deep into my breast. The surgeons managed to cure me with difficulty, and my illness was long and painful. My wife nursed me, comforted me, supported me when I would have given in with the pain. And with returning health there dawned within me, and grew stronger and stronger, a feeling which I had never known before. The gambler is a stranger to all the ordinary emotions of humanity, so that till then I had no knowledge of love, and the faithful devotion of a wife. The debt which my ungrateful heart owed to my wife burned in the depths of my soul, as well as the sense of the wickedness of the occupation to which I had sacrificed her. Like torturing spirits of vengeance appeared to me all those whose happiness, whose very existence, I had ruined, reproaching me, in hoarse and hollow voices, with the guilt and crime of which I had planted the germs. None but my wife could dispel the nameless sorrow, the terror, which then took possession of me. I made a solemn vow that I would never touch a card again. I tore myself away. I burst the bonds which had held me. I withstood the enticements of my croupiers, who could not get on when my luck was gone from the enterprise. I had bought a small country house near Rome, and there I fled with my wife as soon as I had recovered. Alas! for only one single year was it that I was vouchsafed a peace, a happiness, a contentment, such as I had never dreamt of. My wife bore me a daughter, and died a few weeks afterwards. I was in despair. I accused heaven, and then turned round and cursed myself and my sinful career, punished in this way by the eternal power, by taking my wife from me, who saved me from destruction--the only creature on earth who gave me comfort and hope. Like the criminal whom the dreadfulness of solitude terrifies, I fled from my country place to Paris. Angela blossomed up, the lovely counterpart of her mother. My whole heart hung upon her. For her sake I made it my business not only to keep a considerable fortune together, but to increase it. It is true that I lent money at high rates of interest. But it is a shameful calumny when I am accused of being a fraudulent usurer. Who are my accusers? Light-minded creatures, who torture and tease me till I lend them money, which they waste and squander as if it were of no value, and then are furious when I get it back from them with infallible strictness--the money which is not mine but my daughter's, whose steward I consider myself to be. Not long ago I rescued a young man from ruin and disgrace by lending him a considerable sum. I knew he was very poor, and I said nothing about repayment till I knew he had succeeded to a fortune. Then I asked him to pay me. Would you credit it, Chevalier, this light-minded scoundrel, who was indebted to me for his very existence, wanted to deny his liability, and, when the law obliged him to pay me, he called me a vile skinflint. I could tell you of plenty similar cases, which have made me hard and unfeeling when I have been met with ingratitude and baseness. More than that, I could tell you of many bitter tears which I have wiped away, of many a prayer which has gone up to heaven for me and my Angela; but you would look upon that as boasting, and besides, as you are a gambler, you would care nothing about it. I hoped and believed that the eternal power was appeased. All delusion, for Satan was freely empowered to blind and deceive me in a more terrible manner than ever. I heard of your luck, Chevalier. Every day I was told of this one and the other having beggared himself at your banque. Then it came to me that I was destined to pit my luck, which had never failed me, against yours--that I was destined to put an end to your career. And this idea, which nothing but madness of the most extraordinary kind could have suggested to me, left me no further peace or rest. Thus I came to your banque. Thus my terrible folly did not leave me until my fortune--no, my Angela's fortune--was all yours. But you will let my daughter take her clothes away with her, will you not?'
"'I have nothing to do with your daughter's clothes,' answered the Chevalier; 'and you may take away the beds and the ordinary household things for cooking and so forth. What do I care for rubbish of that sort? But take care that nothing of any value of that which is now my property goes away amongst them.'
"Old Vertua stared speechlessly at the Chevalier for a few seconds, then a stream of tears burst from his eyes. Like a man annihilated, all sorrow and despair, he sank down before the Chevalier with hands uplifted.
"'Have you any human feeling left in your heart?' he cried. 'Have some mercy! Remember it is not me whom you are dashing into ruin and misery, but my unoffending angel child--my Angela! Oh, have mercy upon her! Lend her the twentieth part of the fortune you have robbed her of. I know you will allow yourself to be implored. Oh! Angela, my daughter!'
"And the old man moaned, sobbed, and called out the name of his child in heart-breaking tones.