That is a good story!--Well, I am going back
to sign the contract. Come with me, Lisbeth--yes, come. They will
never know. I meant to have left Celestine forty thousand francs a
year; but Hulot has just behaved in a way to alienate my affection for
ever."
"Give me ten minutes, Pere Crevel; wait for me in your carriage at the
gate. I will make some excuse for going out."
"Very well--all right."
"My dears," said Lisbeth, who found all the family reassembled in the
drawing-room, "I am going with Crevel: the marriage contract is to be
signed this afternoon, and I shall hear what he has settled. It will
probably be my last visit to that woman. Your father is furious; he
will disinherit you--"
"His vanity will prevent that," said the son-in-law. "He was bent on
owning the estate of Presles, and he will keep it; I know him. Even if
he were to have children, Celestine would still have half of what he
might leave; the law forbids his giving away all his fortune.--Still,
these questions are nothing to me; I am only thinking of our honor.
--Go then, cousin," and he pressed Lisbeth's hand, "and listen
carefully to the contract."
Twenty minutes after, Lisbeth and Crevel reached the house in the Rue
Barbet, where Madame Marneffe was awaiting, in mild impatience, the
result of a step taken by her commands.
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