uld certainly be condemned to hard labour for five or
six years, which would be a very wholesome lesson for him."

"Grandfather!" screamed the tortured child. This last allusion dissolved
her voice in tears. She fell down on her knees before him and shed
innocent tears enough on his hand to wash out all the old specks and
stains on it.

"I am glad to see those tears, my dear little girl, they show that you
have confidence in me. I am not a tiger who eats little children, what I
have said _might_ happen but I don't say it necessarily _must_. I don't
want to be cruel and vindictive. I don't want to recollect anything of
the insults showered upon me in that scribble of yours, all I ask of you
is that you will not stand in your own way. Get up and don't cry any
more or you will be ill again. Go up into your own room and ponder
deeply what you ought to do! In two hours' time I shall send for you
again, and in the meantime make up your mind about it. You have the
choice between accepting as your husband an honourable gentleman of
becoming rank and at the same time renouncing and forgetting a fellow
who will never be able to raise himself to your level, or of taking the
veil and bidding good-bye to this world. In the latter case, however,
your brother will be sent to a reformatory and an action will be
commenced against your accomplice. It is for you to choose. You have two
whole hours to turn the matter over in your mind. In the meantime I
shall send for my lawyer and, according to your decision, I shall get
him to draw up a marriage contract or a summons to the criminal court.
It all depends upon you. And now put back those documents beneath my
head. Remember that you will only receive them back from me as a bridal
gift. Go now to your own room and reflect. For two hours nobody shall
disturb you."

The girl mechanically complied with his commands. She put back the
ominous documents in their receptacle and withdrew to her room. There
she stood in front of a vase of flowers and regarded their green leaves
for an hour without moving. In the vase was a fine specimen of one of
those wondrous tropical plants whose leaves never fall off, one of those
plants which the seasons leave unchanged and which, therefore, is such a
beautiful emblem of constancy. This beautiful plant has a peculiar
property. If one of its compact shining leaves be planted in the earth
it takes root and grows into a shrub whose fragrant wax-like flowers
dif