“Ah! you abuse my forlorn condition infamously!” broke in the young girl. And, as he still insisted, she added,—
“Why don’t you go, coward? Why don’t you go, wretched man? Must I call?”
He was frightened, backed to the door, and half opened it; then he said,—
“You refuse me to-day; but, before the month is over, you will beg me to come to you. You are ruined; and I alone can rescue you.”
XVIII.
At last, then, the truth had come out!
Overcome with horror, her hair standing at an end, and shaken by nervous spasms, poor Henrietta was trying to measure the depth of the abyss into which she had thrown herself.
Voluntarily, and with the simplicity of a child, she had walked into the pit which had been dug for her. But who, in her place, would not have trusted? Who could have conceived such an idea? Who could have suspected such monstrous rascality?
Ah! Now she understood but too well all the mysterious movements that had so puzzled her in M. de Brevan. She saw how profound had been his calculations when he recommended her so urgently not to take her jewels with her while escaping from her father’s house, nor any object of value; for, if she had had her jewelry, she would have been in possession of a small fortune; she would have been independent, and above want, at least for a couple of years.