"You will
follow it as far as the scaffold at Toulouse. That, you will tell
me, is your own affair. But what provision have you made for your
wife and daughter? Did you marry me and get her to leave us to
perish of starvation? Or are we to turn kitchen wenches or
sempstresses for our livelihood?"
With a groan, the Vicomte sank down upon the bed, and covered his
face with his hands.
"God pity me!" he cried, in a voice of agony - an agony such as the
fear of death could never have infused into his brave soul; an agony
born of the heartlessness of this woman who for twenty years had
shared his bed and board, and who now in the hour of his adversity
failed him so cruelly - so tragically.
"Aye," she mocked in her bitterness, "call upon God to pity you,
for I shall not."
She paced the room now, like a caged lioness, her face livid with
the fury that possessed her. She no longer asked questions; she
no longer addressed him; oath followed oath from her thin lips, and
the hideousness of this woman's blasphemy made me shudder. At last
there were heavy steps upon the stairs, and, moved by a sudden
impulse "Madame," I cried, "let me prevail upon you to restrain
yourself."
She swung round to face me, her dose-set eyes ablaze with anger.
"Sangdieu! By what right do you--" she began but this was no time
to let a woman's tongue go babbling on; no time for ceremony; no
season for making a leg and addressing her with a simper.
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