“Do not approach me!” he exclaimed.
He then advanced into the cell, and closed the door. The father and son
were alone together, Prosper heart-broken, crushed; M. Bertomy angry,
almost threatening.
Cast off by this last friend, by his father, the miserable young man
seemed to be stupefied with pain and disappointment.
“You too!” he bitterly cried. “You, you believe me guilty? Oh, father!”
“Spare yourself this shameful comedy,” interrupted M. Bertomy: “I know
all.”
“But I am innocent, father; I swear it by the sacred memory of my
mother.”
“Unhappy wretch,” cried M. Bertomy, “do not blaspheme!”
He seemed overcome by tender thoughts of the past, and in a weak, broken
voice, he added:
“Your mother is dead, Prosper, and little did I think that the day would
come when I could thank God for having taken her from me. Your crime
would have killed her, would have broken her heart!”
After a painful silence, Prosper said:
“You overwhelm me, father, and at the moment when I need all my courage;
when I am the victim of an odious plot.”
“Victim!” cried M. Bertomy, “victim! Dare you utter your insinuations
against the honorable man who has taken care of you, loaded you with
benefits, and had insured you a brilliant future! It is enough for you
to have robbed him; do not calumniate him.”
“For pity’s sake, father, let me speak!”
“I suppose you would deny your benefactor’s kindness. Yet you were at
one time so sure of his affection, that you wrote me to hold myself in
readiness to come to Paris and ask M. Fauvel for the hand of his niece.
Was that a lie too?”
“No,” said Prosper in a choked voice, “no.”
“That was a year ago; you then loved Mlle. Madeleine; at least you wrote
to me that you--”
“Father, I love her now, more than ever; I have never ceased to love
her.”