What mercy can I expect at God's hands? His vengeance overtakes the
guilty in many ways; it assumes every aspect of disaster. That is what
my mother told me on her death-bed, speaking of her own old age.--But
if I should lose you," she added, hugging Crevel with a sort of savage
frenzy--"oh! I should die!"
Madame Marneffe released Crevel, knelt down again at the armchair,
folded her hands--and in what a bewitching attitude!--and with
incredible fervor poured out the following prayer:--
"And thou, Saint Valerie, my patron saint, why dost thou so rarely
visit the pillow of her who was intrusted to thy care? Oh, come this
evening, as thou didst this morning, to inspire me with holy thoughts,
and I will quit the path of sin; like the Magdalen, I will give up
deluding joys and the false glitter of the world, even the man I love
so well--"
"My precious duck!"
"No more of the 'precious duck,' monsieur!" said she, turning round
like a virtuous wife, her eyes full of tears, but dignified, cold, and
indifferent.
"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.
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