She was praying, so she told me
afterwards, to her guardian angel,--I wonder what that personage was
about just then, Bonpre! Anyhow, to her petition came no answer but
a devil,--a devil personified in me,--I made her love me,--I tempted
her by ever subtle and hellish persuasion I could think of,--I can
never even now think of that time without wondering where all the
eloquent evil of my tongue came from--and--well!--she never was able
to ask the guardian angel any more favours! And I?--I think I loved
her for a while,--but no, I am not sure;--I believe there is no such
good thing as absolute love in my composition. Anyway, I soon left
Touraine, and had almost forgotten her when she wrote to tell me of
the birth of her child--a son. I gave her no reply, and then she
wrote again,--such a letter!--such words! At the moment they burnt
me,--stabbed me--positively hurt me,--and I was not then easily
hurt. She swore she would bring the boy up to curse his father,--
and, to put it quite briefly,--she did. She died when he was twenty,
and it now appears the lad took an oath by her death-bed that he
would never rest till he had killed the man who had dishonoured his
mother, and broken her heart, and brought him into the world with a
stigma on his name.
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