“I will try to make the Baradiers forget theirs.”
“Oh, father, dear father!”
She flung her arms around his neck with such a burst of joy, that Lichtenbach turned pale with shame. For the first time in his life, he had a very clear impression of the significance of a cowardly action, doubtless, because his victim in this case was his own daughter. At the same time, he felt that the evil deeds of a whole lifetime accumulate, and that, at some time or other, the interest must be paid, in humiliation and suffering. He looked at Marianne tenderly, and said, in accents of sincerity—
“Ah! is it so serious as that? Very well, my child, I will do everything possible to make you happy.”
After kissing her, he returned to his room, ordered his carriage, and drove away to call on the Abbé d’Escayrac.
CHAPTER IV
About five o’clock Madame Baradier had just returned, and was reading in her small salon; her daughter, Amélie, and Geneviève de Trémont were working at the table, chatting pleasantly the while, when the servant entered, and said—
“There is a priest here, who wishes to speak to you, madame.”
Madame Baradier, lady patroness of several charitable institutions, was continually receiving appeals to her generosity. She made no distinction between the clergy and the laity, but received all with equal benevolence. Accordingly, she ordered the visitor to be showed in. The first glance she gave him showed her a fine, intelligent face, the general aspect being rather that of a fashionable and carefully dressed priest. The first words he uttered confirmed this judgment—
“Madame,” said the visitor, “I am the Abbé d’Escayrac, secretary of the Issy establishment, which is under the lofty patronage of the Bishop of Andropolis.”