Say that they lied when they accused a La Verberie
of disgracing her name! Speak: defend yourself!"

Valentine mournfully shook her head, but said nothing.

"It is true, then?" shrieked the countess, beside herself with rage;
"what they said is true?"

"Forgive me, mother: have mercy! I am so miserable!" moaned the poor
girl.

"Forgive! have mercy! Do you dare to tell me I have not been deceived by
this gossip to-day? Do you have the insolence to stand there and glory
in your shame? Whose blood flows in your veins? You seem to be ignorant
that some faults should be persistently denied, no matter how glaring
the evidence against them. And you are my daughter! Can you not
understand that an ignominious confession like this should never be
forced from a woman by any human power? But no, you have lovers, and
unblushingly avow it. Why not run over the town and tell everybody?
Boast of it, glory in it: it would be something new!"

"Alas! you are pitiless, mother!"

"Did you ever have any pity on me, my dutiful daughter? Did it ever
occur to you that your disgrace would kill me? No: I suppose you
and your lover have often laughed at my blind confidence; for I had
confidence in you: I had perfect faith in you. I believed you to be
as innocent as when you lay in your cradle. And it has come to this:
drunken men make a jest of your name in a billiard-room, then fight
about you, and kill each other. I intrusted to you the honor of
our name, and what did you do with it? You handed it over to the
first-comer!"

This was too much for Valentine. The words, "first-comer," wounded
her pride more than all the other abuse heaped upon her. She tried to
protest against this unmerited insult.

"Ah, I have made a mistake in supposing this to be the first one," said
the countess. "Among your many lovers, you choose the heir of our worst
enemy, the son of those detested Clamerans. Among all, you select a
coward who publicly boasted of your favors; a wretch who tried to avenge
himself for the heroism of our ancestors by ruining you and me--an old
woman and a child!"

"No, mother, you do him wrong. He loved me, and hopes for your consent."

"Wants to marry you, does he? Never, never shall that come to pass! I
would rather see you lower than you are, in the gutter, laid in your
coffin, than see you the wife of that man!"

Thus the hatred of the countess was expressed very much in the terms
which the old marquis had used to his son.