Do you comprehend?"
"I comprehend that you scoff at me still, always, and without pity."
"Perhaps solitude creates such strange fantasies."
Her tone, until then, had been sardonic; but she pronounced these last
words with a serious expression, and accompanied them by a glance which
made the notary tremble. "Hush--do not look at me thus; you will make me
mad. I prefer that you should say to me _never_; at least, I could
abhor you, drive you from the house," cried Jacques Ferrand, who again
abandoned his vain hopes. "Yes, for I expect nothing from you. But woe is
me! woe! I know you now enough. You tell me to convince you of my love; do
you not see how unhappy I am! Yet I do all I can to please you. You wish to
be concealed from every eye: I conceal you, perhaps at the risk of
compromising myself; in fine, I do not know who you are; I respect your
secret; I never speak to you about it. I have interrogated you on your past
life; you have not answered me."
"Well! I was wrong; I am going to give you a mark of blind confidence. Oh!
my master, listen to me."
"Once more a bitter joke!"
"No, it is very serious. You must know, you should know, the history of her
to whom you give such generous hospitality."
And Cecily added, in a tone of hypocritical and tearful compunction:
"The daughter of a brave soldier, brother of my Aunt Pipelet, I have
received an education above my condition; I was seduced, then abandoned, by
a rich young man.
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