"The comte returned to Paris, saw his wife, told her he had killed the Pole, and went back into the country. Since that time he never saw her or her son, and resided at Angers, where he lived, as they say, like a regular old wolf, with what was left of his eighty thousand francs, which had been sweated down not a little, as you may suppose, by his chase after the Pole. At Angers he saw no one, unless it were the wife and daughter of his relative, M. de Fermont, who has been dead some years now. Besides, it was an unfortunate family, for the brother of Madame de Fermont blew his brains out some months ago."
"And the mother of M. le Vicomte?"
"He lost her a long time ago; that's the reason that, when he attained his majority, M. le Vicomte came into his mother's fortune. So, you see, my dear Edwards, that, as to inheritance, the vicomte has nothing, or almost less than nothing, to expect from his father."
"Who, moreover, detests him."
He exhibited such ferocious joy.
Original Etching by Mercier.
"He never would see him after the discovery in question, being fully persuaded, no doubt, that he is the son of the Pole."
The conversation of these two personages was interrupted by a gigantic footman, elaborately powdered, although it was scarcely eleven o'clock.