"I do not doubt your eloquence; but it is not remonstrance, nor good counsel that this child wants: a little happiness would answer the purpose far better."
"Happiness! Ah, yes! his life is a little sad. There are certain maxims of education—"
"It is not a question of maxims of education, but of a father who betrays an open hatred to his son."
"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed the priest with a gesture of terror, "you must not say such things, my child. These are words which the good God does not like to hear. Never repeat them, it would be neither prudent nor charitable."
Gilbert persisted; announcing the conjectures which he had formed as certainties, and even exaggerating his suspicions in the hope that the priest, in correcting him, would furnish the explanations which he desired. The success of this little artifice surpassed his expectation.
"I know for a certainty," said he, "that M. Leminof loved his wife,—that she was unfaithful to him—that he finished by suspecting her, and that he revenged himself—"
"False! false!" cried the priest with deep emotion. "To hear you one would believe that Count Kostia killed his wife. You have heard lying reports. The truth is, that the Countess Olga poisoned herself, and then feeling the approach of death, became terrified and implored aid. It was useless: they could not counteract the effects of the poison. She then sent in haste for me. I had but just time to receive her confession. Oh! what a frightful scene, my child! Why recall it to me? And above all, whose calumnious tongue—"
"I have been told, also," pursued the inflexible Gilbert, "that after this deplorable event M. Leminof, holding in abhorrence the localities which witnessed his dishonor, quitted Moscow and Russia, and went to Martinique. Having arrived there, he lost, after some months' residence, one of his two children, a daughter if I am not mistaken, and this death may have been hastened by—"
"A fresh calumny!" interrupted the priest, looking steadily at Gilbert. "The young girl died of yellow fever. Kostia Petrovitch never raised a finger against his children. Ah! tell me what viper's tongue—"
"It is not a calumny, at least, to state that he has two good reasons for not loving his son. First, because he is the living portrait of his mother, and then because he doubts, perhaps, if this child is really his son."