, 'Who may
that gentleman be?'--'The father-in-law with the money bags; he is very
rich.'--'The devil, he is!' they would say, and look again at me with
the respect due to my money. Well, if I was in the way sometimes, I paid
dearly for my mistakes. And besides, who is perfect? (My head is one
sore!) Dear Monsieur Eugene, I am suffering so now, that a man might die
of the pain; but it is nothing to be compared with the pain I endured
when Anastasie made me feel, for the first time, that I had said
something stupid. She looked at me, and that glance of hers opened all
my veins. I used to want to know everything, to be learned; and one
thing I did learn thoroughly--I knew that I was not wanted here on
earth.

"The next day I went to Delphine for comfort, and what should I do there
but make some stupid blunder that made her angry with me. I was like one
driven out of his senses. For a week I did not know what to do; I did
not dare to go to see them for fear they should reproach me. And that
was how they both turned me out of the house.

"Oh God! Thou knowest all the misery and anguish that I have endured;
Thou hast counted all the wounds that have been dealt to me in these
years that have aged and changed me and whitened my hair and drained my
life; why dost Thou make me to suffer so to-day? Have I not more than
expiated the sin of loving them too much? They themselves have been the
instruments of vengeance; they have tortured me for my sin of affection.

"Ah, well! fathers know no better; I loved them so; I went back to them
as a gambler goes to the gaming table. This love was my vice, you see,
my mistress--they were everything in the world to me. They were always
wanting something or other, dresses and ornaments, and what not; their
maids used to tell me what they wanted, and I used to give them the
things for the sake of the welcome that they bought for me. But, at
the same time, they used to give me little lectures on my behavior in
society; they began about it at once. Then they began to feel ashamed of
me. That is what comes of having your children well brought up. I could
not go to school again at my time of life. (This pain is fearful! _Mon
Dieu!_ These doctors! these doctors! If they would open my head, it
would give me some relief!) Oh, my daughters, my daughters! Anastasie!
Delphine! If I could only see them! Send for the police, and make them
come to me! Justice is on my side, the whole world is on my side, I