"Thunder and blood!" cried Jacques, in a voice choked with rage; "my
fortune entirely swallowed up in these stupid good works! I, who despise
and execrate men; I, who have only lived to deceive and despoil them; I
found philanthropic establishments--to be forced to do it by infernal
means! But is it the devil, then, who is your master?" he cried, with fury,
stopping abruptly before Polidori.
"I have no master," he answered, coldly. "Like you, I have a judge!"
"To obey like a fool the orders of this man!" said Jacques Ferrand, with
renewed rage. "And this priest, whom I have so often laughed at, because he
was the dupe of my hypocrisy; every one of the praises he gave me was like
a thrust with a dagger. And to be compelled--"
"Or the scaffold, as an alternative."
"Oh! not to be able to escape this fatal power! There is more than a
million that I have given up. If I have left, with this house a hundred
thousand francs, it is the very outside. What more do they want?"
"You are not at the end yet. The prince knows, through Badinot, that your
man of straw, Petit Jean, was only a name borrowed by you for the purpose
of making the usurious loans to the Viscount de Saint Remy. The sums which
Saint Remy repaid you were loaned to him by a great lady; probably another
restitution awaits you: but it stands adjourned. Doubtless because it is a
more delicate affair.
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