conceal what I knew? Ah! it was because, by watching you, I hoped to discover the cursed bastard and your accomplice. It was because I dreamed of a vengeance as terrible as the offence. I said to myself that the day would come when, at any risk, you would try to see your child again, to embrace her, and provide for her future. Fool! fool that I was! You had already forgotten her! When you received news of my intended return, she was sent to some foundling asylum, or left to die upon some door-step. Have you ever thought of her? Have you ever asked what has become of her? ever asked yourself if she had needed bread while you have been living in almost regal luxury? ever asked yourself into what depths of vice she may have fallen?""Always the same ridiculous accusation!" exclaimed the baroness. "Yes, always!"

"You must know, however, that this story of a child is only a vile slander. I told you so when you spoke of it to me a dozen years afterward. I have repeated it a thousand times since."

The baron uttered a sigh that was very like a sob, and without paying any heed to his wife's words, he continued: "If I consented to allow you to remain under my roof, it was only for the sake of our daughter. I trembled lest the scandal of a separation should fall upon her. But it was useless suffering on my part. She was as surely lost as you yourself were; and it was your work, too!"

"What! you blame me for that?"

"Whom ought I to blame, then? Who took her to balls, and theatres and races--to every place where a young girl ought NOT to be taken? Who initiated her into what you call high life? and who used her as a discreet and easy chaperon? Who married her to a wretch who is a disgrace to the title he bears, and who has completed the work of demoralization you began? And what is your daughter to-day? Her extravagance has made her notorious even among the shameless women who pretend to be leaders of society. She is scarcely twenty-two, and there is not a single prejudice left for her to brave! Her husband is the companion of actresses and courtesans; her own companions are no better--and in less than two years the million of francs which I bestowed on her as a dowry has been squandered, recklessly squandered--for there isn't a penny of it left. And, at this very hour, my daughter and my son-in-law are plotting to extort money from me. On the day before yesterday--listen carefully to this--my son-in-law came to ask me for a hundred thousand francs, and when I refused them, he threatened if I did not give th...

Pascal was 

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