ever
fail to keep your word--those are two principles which should never be
forgotten.'

"'Oh! mamma, how beautiful you are! _You_ have never told a lie, I am
quite sure.'

"'Once or twice, Ernest dear, I have lied. Yes, and I have not kept my
word under circumstances which speak louder than all precepts. Listen,
my Ernest, you are big enough and intelligent enough to see that your
father drives me away, and will not allow me to nurse him, and this is
not natural, for you know how much I love him.'

"'Yes, mamma.'

"The Countess began to cry. 'Poor child!' she said, 'this misfortune
is the result of treacherous insinuations. Wicked people have tried to
separate me from your father to satisfy their greed. They mean to take
all our money from us and to keep it for themselves. If your father were
well, the division between us would soon be over; he would listen to
me; he is loving and kind; he would see his mistake. But now his mind is
affected, and his prejudices against me have become a fixed idea, a
sort of mania with him. It is one result of his illness. Your father's
fondness for you is another proof that his mind is deranged. Until
he fell ill you never noticed that he loved you more than Pauline and
Georges. It is all caprice with him now. In his affection for you he
might take it into his head to tell you to do things for him. If you do
not want to ruin us all, my darling, and to see your mother begging her
bread like a pauper woman, you must tell her everything----'

"'Ah!' cried the Count. He had opened the door and stood there, a
sudden, half-naked apparition, almost as thin and fleshless as a
skeleton.

"His smothered cry produced a terrible effect upon the Countess; she
sat motionless, as if a sudden stupor had seized her. Her husband was as
white and wasted as if he had risen out of his grave.

"'You have filled my life to the full with trouble, and now you are
trying to vex my deathbed, to warp my boy's mind, and make a depraved
man of him!' he cried, hoarsely.

"The Countess flung herself at his feet. His face, working with the last
emotions of life, was almost hideous to see.

"'Mercy! mercy!' she cried aloud, shedding a torrent of tears.

"'Have you shown me any pity?' he asked. 'I allowed you to squander your
own money, and now do you mean to squander my fortune, too, and ruin my
son?'

"'Ah! well, yes, have no pity for me, be merciless to me!' she cried.
'But the children? Condemn your wi