e has soaked her in
sorrows, he has neglected her for prostitutes, for street-hussies, for
ballet-girls, actresses--Cadine, Josepha, Marneffe!--And that is the
brother I treated as a son and made my pride!

"Go, wretched man; if you can accept the life of degradation you have
made for yourself, leave my house! I have not the heart to curse a
brother I have loved so well--I am as foolish about him as you are,
Adeline--but never let me see him again. I forbid his attending my
funeral or following me to the grave. Let him show the decency of a
criminal if he can feel no remorse."

The Marshal, as pale as death, fell back on the settee, exhausted by
his solemn speech. And, for the first time in his life perhaps, tears
gathered in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

"My poor uncle!" cried Lisbeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes.

"Brother!" said Adeline, kneeling down by the Marshal, "live for my
sake. Help me in the task of reconciling Hector to the world and making
him redeem the past."

"He!" cried the Marshal. "If he lives, he is not at the end of his
crimes. A man who has misprized an Adeline, who has smothered in his
own soul the feelings of a true Republican which I tried to instill into
him, the love of his country, of his family, and of the poor--that man
is a monster, a swine!--Take him away if you still care for him, for a
voice within me cries to me to load my pistols and blow his brains out.
By killing him I should save you all, and I should save him too from
himself."

The old man started to his feet with such a terrifying gesture that poor
Adeline exclaimed:

"Hector--come!"

She seized her husband's arm, dragged him away, and out of the house;
but the Baron was so broken down, that she was obliged to call a coach
to take him to the Rue Plumet, where he went to bed. The man remained
there for several days in a sort of half-dissolution, refusing all
nourishment without a word. By floods of tears, Adeline persuaded him to
swallow a little broth; she nursed him, sitting by his bed, and feeling
only, of all the emotions that once had filled her heart, the deepest
pity for him.

At half-past twelve, Lisbeth showed into her dear Marshal's room--for
she would not leave him, so much was she alarmed at the evident change
in him--Count Steinbock and the notary.

"Monsieur le Comte," said the Marshal, "I would beg you to be so good as
to put your signature to a document authorizing my niece, your wife,