"Father," she said, "ask my life! Take it if you will, but at least take it pure and spotless, and I will yield it up gladly. Do not ask me to die in dishonor and crime. I am not at all like my husband; I cannot swallow an outrage. If I went back under my husband's roof, I should be capable of smothering him in a fit of jealousy—or of doing worse! Do no exact from me a thing that is beyond my powers. Do not have to mourn for me still living, for the least that can befall me is to go mad. I feel madness close upon me!
"Yesterday, yesterday, he could dine with that woman, after having read my letter?—Are other men made so? My life I give you, but do not let my death be ignominious!—His fault?—A small one! When he has a child by that woman!"
"A child!" cried Hulot, starting back a step or two. "Come. This is really some fooling."
At this juncture Victorin and Lisbeth arrived, and stood dumfounded at the scene. The daughter was prostrate at her father's feet. The Baroness, speechless between her maternal feelings and her conjugal duty, showed a harassed face bathed in tears.
"Lisbeth," said the Baron, seizing his cousin by the hand and pointing to Hortense, "you can help me here. My poor child's brain is turned; she believes that her Wenceslas is Madame Marneffe's lover, while all that Valerie wanted was to have a group by him."
"Delilah!" cried the young wife. "The only thing he has done since our marriage. The man would not work for me or for his son, and he has worked with frenzy for that good-for-nothing creature.—Oh, father, kill me outright, for every word stabs like a knife!"
Lisbeth turned to the Baroness and Victorin, pointing with a pitying shrug to the Baron, who could not see her.
"Listen to me," said she to him. "I had no idea—when you asked me to go to lodge over Madame Marneffe and keep house for her—I had no idea of what she was; but many things may be learned in three years. That creature is a prostitute, and one whose depravity can only be compared with that of her infamous and horrible husband. You are the dupe, my lord pot-boiler, of those people; you will be led further by them than you dream of! I speak plainly, for you are at the bottom of a pit."
The Baroness and her daughter, hearing Lisbeth speak in this style, cast adoring looks at her, such as the devout cast at a Madonna for having saved their life.
"That horrible woman was bent on destroying your son-in-law's home. To what end?—I know not. My brain is not equal to seeing clearly into these dark intrigues—perverse, ignoble, infamous! Your Madame Marneffe does not love your son-in-law, but she will have him at her feet out of revenge. I have just spoken to the wretched woman as she deserves. She is a shameless courtesan; I have told her that I am leaving her house, that I would not have my honor smirched in that muck-heap.—I owe myself to my family before all else.