"Ah! the wretch! I, who took such devoted care of him!"
"Perhaps it is somewhere else?" said Frederick.
"Oh! no! it was there! in that strong-box, I saw it there lately. 'Tis burned! I'm certain of it!"
One day, in the early stage of his illness, M. Dambreuse had gone down to this room to sign some documents.
"'Tis then he must have done the trick!"
And she fell back on a chair, crushed. A mother grieving beside an empty cradle was not more woeful than Madame Dambreuse was at the sight of the open strong-boxes. Indeed, her sorrow, in spite of the baseness of the motive which inspired it, appeared so deep that he tried to console her by reminding her that, after all, she was not reduced to sheer want.
"It is want, when I am not in a position to offer you a large fortune!"
She had not more than thirty thousand livres a year, without taking into account the mansion, which was worth from eighteen to twenty thousand, perhaps.
Although to Frederick this would have been opulence, he felt, none the less, a certain amount of disappointment. Farewell to his dreams and to all the splendid existence on which he had intended to enter! Honour compelled him to marry Madame Dambreuse. For a minute he reflected; then, in a tone of tenderness: