Then I loved you like a madman, dupe of your seductions. I thought
that your rigid heart of brass had beaten for me. I answered to my father
that I would never have any wife but you. At these words, his anger had no
bounds; he called you the most outrageous names; swore that our marriage
was null; and that, in order to punish your presumption, he would place you
in the pillory. Yielding to my mad passion, to the violence of my temper, I
dared to forbid my father, my sovereign, to speak thus of my wife. I dared
to threaten him. Exasperated at this insult, my father struck me; rage
blinded me. I drew my sword. I threw myself upon him. Except for Sir Walter
Murphy, who turned aside the blow, I had been a parricide in reality, as I
was in intention! Do you hear? parricide! And to defend you--you!"
"Alas! I was ignorant of all this."
"In vain I have thought my crime expiated; the blow I have received today
is my punishment."
"But have I not also suffered from the obduracy of your father, who broke
our marriage? Why accuse me of not having loved you, when--"
"Why?" cried Rudolph, interrupting Sarah, and casting upon her a glance of
withering scorn. "Know it then, and be no more surprised at the horror with
which you inspire me. After this fatal scene, in which I had threatened the
life of my father, I gave up my sword. I was imprisoned with the greatest
secrecy.
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