It made him wild with rage to think that he was only
separated from this immense fortune--the dream of his life--by a
single word of mine, and to find that he had not the power to
extort that word from me. Then began a struggle between us, which
became more and more frightful as the money he possessed gradually
dwindled away. But it was in vain that he resorted to brutal
treatment; in vain that he struck me, tortured me, and dragged me
about the floor by the hair of my head! The thought that I was
avenged, that his sufferings equalled mine, increased my courage a
hundredfold, and made me almost insensible to physical pain. He
would certainly have been the first to grow weary of the struggle,
if a fiendish plan had not occurred to him. He said to himself
that if he could not conquer the wife, he COULD conquer the mother
and he threatened to turn his brutatity to you, Wilkie. To save
you--for I knew what he was capable of--I pretended to waver, and
I asked twenty-four hours for reflection. He granted them. But
the next day I left him forever, flying from him with you in my
arms."
M. Wilkie turned white, and a cold chill crept up his spine.
However, it was not pity for his mother's sufferings, nor shame
for his father's infamy that agitated him, but ever the same
terrible fear of incurring the enmity of this dangerous coveter of
the Chalusse millions.
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