(_He sits down weeping, his head in his hands._)
I beg your pardon. It is not to tell you all this that I have asked you to come here; but, after all, I have no one else now. Here am I, alone in the world. You are my friends--you have said so at least; and then again you did not come to my house to take her away, did you? Never mind, let us try to put my ideas a little in order. I do not know very well what I am about, you can understand that. However, you are convinced that I am an honest man? That is the reason I wanted to see you. You must tell me that you esteem me still. I may have been easily smitten, very stupid. I was so young then! Alas! I feel a hundred years old to-day. I may have been foolish to marry a creature unworthy of me; but you believe me, you know me incapable of all connivance with her; you feel certain that I have no hand in all this disgusting money affair? and when I have gone away, when I am dead, for it will certainly kill me in one way or another, you will take care to say, to affirm strongly, to swear to it even, that I was ignorant of the whole thing. I shall have lost my mother, my faith, my fortune, my life, for that woman; so be it, but at least I have preserved my honour!
Rely on us, my dear friend, and understand that we think you the most upright man in the world; that we esteem you for your honourableness, and sympathise with you in your great misfortune.
(TRÉVELÉ, _on his part, takes John warmly by the hand_.)
Then, you understand why I have raised this scandal instead of provoking the man. If I had been killed, a suspicion would always have rested on me. Mr. Nourvady paid the debts of my wife; they would have said that I did not find this enough, that I had asked for more, that he had refused me, that then I had quarrelled with him, that he had killed me, and that he had done right. If, on the contrary, I had killed him, they would have said worse things still; that I had waited until he had paid all household debts and had given my wife a fortune (for she has a splendid mansion), a million for her own use; and having arranged all that, and after all these disgraceful artifices, I had killed this generous lover; and that this was my way of settling with my creditors, and setting up my establishment again. This is why I have acted in this way. I wanted to raise an unmistakable scandal, well-spread abroad, from which it would be reported that she is a wretch and I an honest man ... and besides, before doing anything else, I must pay back his money.