to me, 'I will do as you have done!' The speech went to my heart;
and after dinner, as I thought of what my cousin had been in 1811, and
of what she is in 1841--thirty years after--I had a violent
indigestion.--I fancied I should get over it; but when I got home, I
thought I was dying--"

"You see, Valerie, to what my adoration of you has brought me! To
crime--domestic crime!"

"Oh! I was wise never to marry!" cried Lisbeth, with savage joy. "You
are a kind, good man; Adeline is a perfect angel;--and this is the
reward of her blind devotion."

"An elderly angel!" said Madame Marneffe softly, as she looked half
tenderly, half mockingly, at her Hector, who was gazing at her as an
examining judge gazes at the accused.

"My poor wife!" said Hulot. "For more than nine months I have given
her no money, though I find it for you, Valerie; but at what a cost!
No one else will ever love you so, and what torments you inflict on me
in return!"

"Torments?" she echoed. "Then what do you call happiness?"

"I do not yet know on what terms you have been with this so-called
cousin whom you never mentioned to me," said the Baron, paying no heed
to Valerie's interjection. "But when he came in I felt as if a
penknife had been stuck into my heart. Blinded I may be, but I am not
blind. I could read his eyes, and yours. In short, from under that
ape's eyelids there flashed sparks that he flung at you--and your
eyes!--Oh! you have never looked at me so, never! As to this mystery,
Valerie, it shall all be cleared up. You are the only woman who ever
made me know the meaning of jealousy, so you need not be surprised by
what I say.--But another mystery which has rent its cloud, and it
seems to me infamous----"

"Go on, go on," said Valerie.

"It is that Crevel, that square lump of flesh and stupidity, is in
love with you, and that you accept his attentions with so good a grace
that the idiot flaunts his passion before everybody."

"Only three! Can you discover no more?" asked Madame Marneffe.

"There may be more!" retorted the Baron.

"If Monsieur Crevel is in love with me, he is in his rights as a man
after all; if I favored his passion, that would indeed be the act of a
coquette, or of a woman who would leave much to be desired on your
part.--Well, love me as you find me, or let me alone. If you restore
me to freedom, neither you nor Monsieur Crevel will ever enter my
doors again. But I will take up with my cousin, just to keep my