"'I have a yearly income of three million francs!
"'All this wealth for my own use! Why should this be? Why should I have so much and others nothing?
"'This immense fortune, how did I acquire it?
"'Alas! by your death, my father; and yours, my mother.
"'So, to make me rich, I had to lose the two whom I loved best in the world.
"'And in order that I may be so rich, there must, perhaps, be thousands of young girls like Herminie always in danger of want, however irreproachable and laborious their lives may be.'
"Ah," added the marquis, with increasing warmth, "this generous cry of an ingenuous heart, these words, artless as the truth that comes from the mouth of a child, are a revelation. Yes, Ernestine, the inheritance of wealth is a curse when it perpetuates the vices and degradation of an idle and luxurious life; yes, the inheritance of wealth is a curse when it arouses and excites the execrable passions of which you so narrowly escaped becoming the victim, my poor, dear child! Yes, the inheritance of wealth is a sacrilege when it concentrates in selfish hands the millions which should furnish employment and the means of subsistence to thousands of families; but the inheritance of wealth is also ennobling in the highest degree when the inheritor zealously and faithfully performs the sacred, indefinable, imprescriptible duties towards the less favoured of fortune which the possession of great wealth imposes upon him, and when he devotes his life to ameliorating the moral and physical condition of those whom society disinherits in favour of a privileged few. And now," said the hunchback, in conclusion, taking the hands of Herminie and of Olivier, "tell me, my children, do you, who were poor yesterday, see any disgrace or humiliation in becoming rich in accordance with these principles of human fraternity? Do you shrink from the sacred and often difficult duties which must be fulfilled each day with wise discrimination and unwearying devotion—if one would secure forgiveness for that gross inequality against which Ernestine in her noble candour protests, when she says, 'Why should I have so much, and others nothing?'"
"Ah, monsieur," cried Olivier, with enthusiasm, "Mlle. de Beaumesnil's fortune is all too small for a work like that."
And picking up the pen with a hand trembling with joy and happiness, the young man affixed his name to the contract.
"At last!" exclaimed Herminie and Ernestine, in the same breath, throwing themselves into each other's arms.