"You would call that vile, would you? We have very different ideas. You escort La Zagarolo quietly to the grave, in order to inherit her worldly goods, and you do not approve of my putting an enemy underground whose existence paralyzes ours forever! It seems to you very innocent, notwithstanding the prohibition of the physicians, to hasten by your generous fondness the end of your dear consumptive's sufferings——"
"Go to the devil! If that madwoman wants to live fast and die soon, why should I prevent her? She is attractive enough to command my obedience, and I am not fond enough of her to resist her."
"What a ghastly thing!" I muttered in spite of myself, and fell back on my pillow.
"Your wife spoke, I think," said the marquis.
"She is dreaming," Leoni replied; "she has the fever."
"Are you sure that she isn't listening?"
"In the first place she would need to have strength to listen. She is very sick, too, poor Juliette! She doesn't complain; she suffers all by herself! She has not twenty women to wait on her; she doesn't pay courtiers to satisfy her sickly fancies; she is dying piously and chastely, like an expiatory victim, between heaven and me."
Leoni sat down at the table and burst into tears.
"This is the effect of brandy," said the marquis, calmly, putting the glass to his lips. "I warned you; it always takes hold of the nerves."
"Let me alone, brute beast!" shouted Leoni, giving the table a push which nearly overturned it on the marquis; "let me weep in peace. You don't know what love is!"