"Leave me," she went on, pushing him from her. "What is my duty? To
belong wholly to my husband.--He is a dying man, and what am I doing?
Deceiving him on the edge of the grave. He believes your child to be
his. I will tell him the truth, and begin by securing his pardon
before I ask for God's.--We must part. Good-bye, Monsieur Crevel," and
she stood up to offer him an icy cold hand. "Good-bye, my friend; we
shall meet no more till we meet in a better world.--You have to thank
me for some enjoyment, criminal indeed; now I want--oh yes, I shall
have your esteem."
Crevel was weeping bitter tears.
"You great pumpkin!" she exclaimed, with an infernal peal of laughter.
"That is how your pious women go about it to drag from you a plum of
two hundred thousand francs. And you, who talk of the Marechal de
Richelieu, the prototype of Lovelace, you could be taken in by such a
stale trick as that! I could get hundreds of thousands of francs out
of you any day, if I chose, you old ninny!--Keep your money! If you
have more than you know what to do with, it is mine. If you give two
sous to that 'respectable' woman, who is pious forsooth, because she
is fifty-six years of age, we shall never meet again, and you may take
her for your mistress! You could come back to me next day bruised all
over from her bony caresses and sodden with her tears, and sick of her
little barmaid's caps and her whimpering, which must turn her favors
into showers--"
"In point of fact," said Crevel, "two hundred thousand francs is a
round sum of money.
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