"Take care!"

"Threats?"

"Threats! and to prove to you that they will not be in vain, learn, in the first place, that I have no sister."

"What, madame?"

"I am the mother of this child."

"You?"

"I invented this fable to interest you. You are without pity: I raise the mask. You want war! well, war be it."

"War! because I refuse to lend myself to a criminal act? what audacity!"

"Listen to me, sir; your reputation as an honest man is great—known far and near."

"Because it is merited. You must have lost your reason before you would have dared to make such a proposition?"