“Yes.”
“Oh, mother!” she cried, turning towards Madame Claes’s chamber, “YOU would have given him all—would you not?”
“Sleep in peace,” said Balthazar, “you are a good daughter.”
“Sleep!” she said, “the nights of my youth are gone; you have made me old, father, just as you slowly withered my mother’s heart.”
“Poor child, would I could re-assure you by explaining the effects of the glorious experiment I have now imagined! you would then comprehend the truth.”
“I comprehend our ruin,” she said, leaving him.
The next morning, being a holiday, Emmanuel de Solis brought Jean to spend the day.
“Well?” he said, approaching Marguerite anxiously.
“I yielded,” she replied.
“My dear life,” he said, with a gesture of melancholy joy, “if you had withstood him I should greatly have admired you; but weak and feeble, I adore you!”