“Everybody, then, is unhappy here,” exclaimed the marquis, “whether their hair be grey or black--an old man or a child.. Oh! and I also--I am unhappy--be assured.
“Sir, go up stairs into your room again: you must,” said the marchioness.
“Yes, that I may again be face to face with you; shut up like a prisoner! That may be very well, when I am mad.”
“Yes, yes, my father, you are right. My mother has devoted herself to you long enough; it is now time that your daughter should perform that duty. Take me with you, father. I will not leave you day or night. You will only have to make a sign, to utter a word, and I will serve you on my knees.”
“Oh! you would not have the strength to do it.”
“Yes, yes, my father, I will--as truly as I am your daughter.”
The marchioness wrung her hands with impatience.
“If you are my daughter, how is it that I have not seen you for ten years?”
“Because I was told that you would not see me, my father; because they told me that you did not love me.”
“You were told that I would not see you--not see that angel face!” said he, taking her head between his hands, and looking at her with intense auction; “they told you that--they told you that a poor condemned soul did not wish for heaven! Who was it, then, that told you a father would not see his child? Who has dared to say, child, your father loves you not?”
“I!----” said the marchioness, again endeavoring to take Marguerite from her father’s arms.
“You!” exclaimed the marquis, interrupting her: “it was you? To you then, has been confided the fatal mission of deceiving me in all my affections. All my griefs, then, must find their source in you? You wish, then, now to break the father’s heart, as twenty years ago, you did that of the husband.”
“You are delirious, sir,” said the marchioness, loosing the arm of her daughter; and going to the right of the marquis, she whispered--“be silent!”
“No, madam, no, I am not now delirious,” replied the marquis, “No! no! Say rather, say that,--and it will be the truth,--say that I am now between an angel who would recall me to reason, and a demon who wishes me again to become insane. No! No! I am not mad. Do you wish that I should prove it to you?” He rose, supporting himself on the arms of his chair. “Must I speak to you of letters, of adultery, of a duel?”