"'Go away and let me alone.'"
Original etching by Adrian Marcel.
"That is very possible," groaned the sick woman. "Hunger is an evil counsellor, I know, when one has one's child as well as one's self to think of. And with this gold, how many of these poor girls might be saved! Ah! if Mariette is to end her days like them, after all, what is the use of struggling?"
For a minute or two the poor woman's contracted features showed that a terrible conflict was raging in her breast. The gold seemed to exercise an almost irresistible fascination over her; she seemed unable to remove her eyes from it; but at last with a desperate effort she closed them, as if to shut out the sight of the money, and throwing herself back on her pillow, cried, angrily:
"Go away, go away, and let me alone."
"What! you refuse my offer, Mother Lacombe?"
"Yes."
"Positively?"
"Yes."
"Then I've got to pocket all this gold again, I suppose," said the stranger, gathering up the coins, and making them jingle loudly as he did so. "All these shining yellow boys must go back into my pocket."
"May the devil take you and your gold!" exclaimed the now thoroughly exasperated woman. "Keep your money, but clear out. I didn't take Mariette in to ruin her, or advise her to ruin herself. Rather than eat bread earned in such way, I would light a brazier of charcoal and end both the girl's life and my own."