第61章

"Marguerite, Marguerite! give it to me--give it!" he cried."What are sixty thousand francs against eternal remorse? See, I shall die, this will kill me.Listen, my word is sacred.If I fail now I will abandon my labors; I will leave Flanders,--France even, if you demand it; Iwill go away and toil like a day-laborer to recover, sou by sou, the fortunes I have lost, and restore to my children all that Science has taken from them."Marguerite tried to raise her father, but he persisted in remaining on his knees, and continued, still weeping:--"Be tender and obedient for this last time! If I do not succeed, Iwill myself declare your hardness just.You shall call me a fool; you shall say I am a bad father; you may even tell me that I am ignorant and incapable.And when I hear you say those words I will kiss your hands.You may beat me, if you will, and when you strike I will bless you as the best of daughters, remembering that you have given me your blood.""If it were my blood, my life's blood, I would give it to you," she cried; "but can I let Science cut the throats of my brothers and sister? No.Cease, cease!" she said, wiping her tears and pushing aside her father's caressing hands.

"Sixty thousand francs and two months," he said, rising in anger;"that is all I want: but my daughter stands between me and fame and wealth.I curse you!" he went on; "you are no daughter of mine, you are not a woman, you have no heart, you will never be a mother or a wife!-- Give it to me, let me take it, my little one, my precious child, I will love you forever,"--and he stretched his hand with a movement of hideous energy towards the gold.

"I am helpless against physical force; but God and the great Claes see us now," she said, pointing to the picture.

"Try to live, if you can, with your father's blood upon you," cried Balthazar, looking at her with abhorrence.He rose, glanced round the room, and slowly left it.When he reached the door he turned as a beggar might have done and implored his daughter with a gesture, to which she replied by a negative motion of her head.

"Farewell, my daughter," he said, gently, "may you live happy!"When he had disappeared, Marguerite remained in a trance which separated her from earth; she was no longer in the parlor; she lost consciousness of physical existence; she had wings, and soared amid the immensities of the moral world, where Thought contracts the limits both of Time and Space, where a divine hand lifts the veil of the Future.It seemed to her that days elapsed between each footfall of her father as he went up the stairs; then a shudder of dread went over her as she heard him enter his chamber.Guided by a presentiment which flashed into her soul with the piercing keenness of lightning, she ran up the stairway, without light, without noise, with the velocity of an arrow, and saw her father with a pistol at his head.

"Take all!" she cried, springing towards him.

She fell into a chair.Balthazar, seeing her pallor, began to weep as old men weep; he became like a child, he kissed her brow, he spoke in disconnected words, he almost danced with joy, and tried to play with her as a lover with a mistress who has made him happy.

"Enough, father, enough," she said; "remember your promise.If you do not succeed now, you pledge yourself to obey me?""Yes."

"Oh, mother!" she cried, turning towards Madame Claes's chamber, "YOUwould 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."