Stephanette, exhausted by fatigue, was sleeping, half-recumbent on a mat.
Reine, seated, hid her face in her two hands.
Erebus stood with his arms crossed and head bowed, while great tears rolled down his pale cheeks.
“Nothing—nothing, I see no help,” said he, in a low voice; then, lifting a supplicating glance to Reine, he said: “What can be done, my God, to snatch you from the hands of these wretches?”
“My father, my father!” said Reine, in a hollow voice. Then turning to Erebus, she exclaimed: “Ah, be accursed, you have caused all my sorrows! But for you I should be with my father. Perhaps he is suffering—perhaps he is wounded! And then at least he would have my care. Ah, be accursed!”
“Yes, always accursed!” repeated Erebus, with bitterness. “My mother doubtless cursed me at my birth! Cursed by the man who reared me! Cursed by you!” added he, in a heartrending voice.
“Have you not taken a daughter from her father? Have you not often been the accomplice of the brigands who ravaged that unfortunate city!” cried Reine, with indignation.
“Oh, for pity’s sake do not crush me! Yes, I have been their accomplice. But, my God! have compassion on me. I was brought up to evil, as you have been brought up to good. You had a mother. You have a father. You have had always before your eyes noble examples to imitate. I,—thrown by chance among these wretches at the age of four or five years, I believe, without parents, without relations, a victim of Pog-Reis, who for his pastime—he told me yesterday—trained me to evil as one would train a young wolf to slaughter, accustomed to hear nothing but the language of bad passions, to know no restraint,—yet, at least, I repent of the evils I have caused. I weep—I weep with despair, because I cannot save you. These tears, which the most cruel suffering would not have wrung from me,—these tears are the expression of the remorse I feel for having wronged you. This wrong I have tried to repair by wishing to conduct you back to your father. Unfortunately, I could not succeed. Ah, if I only had not met you that day in the rocks of Provence, if only I had not seen your beauty—”
“Not a word more,” said Reine, with dignity. “It was that day my sorrows began. Oh, it was indeed a fatal day!”
“Yes, fatal, for if I had not seen you I should never have felt an aspiration toward good. My life would always have been a life of crime. I should never have been tormented by the remorse which now consumes me,” said Erebus, with a gloomy air.