The Marshal, as pale as death, fell back on the settee, exhausted by his solemn speech. And, for the first time in his life perhaps, tears gathered in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
“My poor uncle!” cried Lisbeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes.
“Brother!” said Adeline, kneeling down by the Marshal, “live for my sake. Help me in the task of reconciling Hector to the world and making him redeem the past.”
“He!” cried the Marshal. “If he lives, he is not at the end of his crimes. A man who has misprized an Adeline, who has smothered in his own soul the feelings of a true Republican which I tried to instill into him, the love of his country, of his family, and of the poor—that man is a monster, a swine!—Take him away if you still care for him, for a voice within me cries to me to load my pistols and blow his brains out. By killing him I should save you all, and I should save him too from himself.”
The old man started to his feet with such a terrifying gesture that poor Adeline exclaimed:
“Hector—come!”
She seized her husband’s arm, dragged him away, and out of the house; but the Baron was so broken down, that she was obliged to call a coach to take him to the Rue Plumet, where he went to bed. The man remained there for several days in a sort of half-dissolution, refusing all nourishment without a word. By floods of tears, Adeline persuaded him to swallow a little broth; she nursed him, sitting by his bed, and feeling only, of all the emotions that once had filled her heart, the deepest pity for him.
At half-past twelve, Lisbeth showed into her dear Marshal’s room—for she would not leave him, so much was she alarmed at the evident change in him—Count Steinbock and the notary.
“Monsieur le Comte,” said the Marshal, “I would beg you to be so good as to put your signature to a document authorizing my niece, your wife, to sell a bond for certain funds of which she at present holds only the reversion.—You, Mademoiselle Fischer, will agree to this sale, thus losing your life interest in the securities.”
“Yes, dear Count,” said Lisbeth without hesitation.