"Ah, sir, you see,—dishonour, madness, death,—see the miseries which that man causes, and yet no one can do any thing against him! Nothing! The very thought completes all my wretchedness."
"So far from that, let the contrary thought help to support you."
"What mean you, sir?"
"Take with you the assurance that your father, yourself, and your family shall be avenged."
"Avenged!"
"Yes, that I swear to you," replied Rodolph, solemnly; "I swear to you that his crimes shall be exposed, and this man shall bitterly expiate the dishonour, madness, and death which he has caused. If the laws are powerless to reach him, if his cunning and skill equal his misdeeds, then his cunning must be met by cunning, his skill must be counteracted by skill, his misdeeds faced by other misdeeds, but which shall be to his but a just and avenging retribution, inflicted on a guilty wretch by an inexorable hand, when compared to a cowardly and base murder."
"Ah, sir, may Heaven hear you! It is no longer myself whom I seek to avenge, but a poor, distracted father,—my child killed in its birth—"
Then, trying another effort to turn Morel from his insanity, Louise again exclaimed:
"Adieu, father! They are going to lead me to prison, and I shall never see you again. It is your poor Louise who bids you adieu. My father! my father! my father!"
To this distressing appeal there was no response. In that poor, destroyed mind there was no echo,—none. The paternal cords, always the last broken, no longer vibrated.