"
"Oh, mother!" she cried, turning towards Madame Claes's chamber, "YOU
would have given him all--would you not?"
"Sleep in peace," said Balthazar, "you are a good daughter."
"Sleep!" she said, "the nights of my youth are gone; you have made me
old, father, just as you slowly withered my mother's heart."
"Poor child, would I could re-assure you by explaining the effects of
the glorious experiment I have now imagined! you would then comprehend
the truth."
"I comprehend our ruin," she said, leaving him.
The next morning, being a holiday, Emmanuel de Solis brought Jean to
spend the day.
"Well?" he said, approaching Marguerite anxiously.
"I yielded," she replied.
"My dear life," he said, with a gesture of melancholy joy, "if you had
withstood him I should greatly have admired you; but weak and feeble,
I adore you!"
"Poor, poor Emmanuel; what is left for us?"
"Leave the future to me," cried the young man, with a radiant look;
"we love each other, and all is well."
CHAPTER XIII
Several months went by in perfect tranquillity. Monsieur de Solis made
Marguerite see that her petty economies would never produce a fortune,
and he advised her to live more at ease, by taking all that remained
of the sum which Madame Claes had entrusted to him for the comfort and
well-being of the household.
During these months Marguerite fell a prey to the anxieties which
beset her mother under like circumstances.
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