, mother, how dreadful! Alas, alas! Have I not warned you that such
would be the end--"

Interrupting him, while her lips became blanched with rage, the widow
exclaimed:

"Enough! 'Tis sufficient that your mother and sister are about to be
murdered, as your father was!"

"Merciful God!" cried Martial. "And to think that I have no power to
prevent it! 'Tis past all human interference. What would you have me do?
Alas! Had you or my sister attended to what I said, you would not now
have been here."

"Oh, no doubt!" returned the widow, with her usual tone of savage irony.
"To you the spectacle of mine and your sister's sufferings is a matter
of delight to your proud heart; you can now tell the world without a
lie that your mother is dead,--you will have to blush for her no more!"

"Had I been wanting in my duty as a son," answered Martial, indignant at
the unjust sarcasms of his mother, "I should not now be here."

"You came but from curiosity! Own the truth if you dare!"

"No, mother! You desired to see me, and I obeyed your wish."

"Ah, Martial," cried Calabash, unable longer to struggle against the
agonising terror she endured, "had I but listened to your advice,
instead of being led by my mother, I should not be here!" Then losing
all further control of herself, she exclaimed, "'Tis all your fault,
accursed mother! Your bad example and evil counsel have brought me to
what I am!"

"Do you hear her?" said the widow, bursting into a fiendish laugh.
"Come, this will repay you for the trouble of paying us a last visit!
Your excellent sister has turned pious, repents of her own sins, and
curses her mother!"

Without making any reply to this unnatural speech, Martial approached
Calabash, whose dying agonies seemed to have commenced, and, regarding
her with deep compassion, said:

"My poor sister! Alas, it is now too late to recall the past!"

"It is never too late to turn coward, it seems!" cried the widow, with
savage excitement. "Oh, what a race you are! Happily Nicholas has
escaped; Francois and Amandine will slip through your fingers; they have
already imbibed vice enough, and want and misery will finish them!"

"Oh, Martial," groaned forth Calabash, "for the love of God, take care
of those two poor children, lest they come to such an end as mother's
and mine!"

"He may watch over them as much as he likes," cried the widow, with
settled hatred in her looks, "vice and destitution will have greater
effect t