"Your name is quite forgotten by this time; you may reappear in the
world, and you will find a fortune awaiting you at your son's house.
Come; our happiness will be complete. For nearly three years I have
been seeking you, and I felt so sure of finding you that a room is
ready waiting for you. Oh! come away from this, come away from the
dreadful state I see you in!"
"I am very willing," said the bewildered Baron, "but can I take the
girl?"
"Hector, give her up! Do that much for your Adeline, who has never
before asked you to make the smallest sacrifice. I promise you I will
give the child a marriage portion; I will see that she marries well,
and has some education. Let it be said of one of the women who have
given you happiness that she too is happy; and do not relapse into
vice, into the mire."
"So it was you," said the Baron, with a smile, "who wanted to see me
married?--Wait a few minutes," he added; "I will go upstairs and
dress; I have some decent clothes in a trunk."
Adeline, left alone, and looking round the squalid shop, melted into
tears.
"He has been living here, and we rolling in wealth!" said she to
herself. "Poor man, he has indeed been punished--he who was elegance
itself.
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