But he
remarked, quietly: "You will be tried for your life."
"I shall be acquitted!" cried the other.
"Yes, but after a public revelation of all your miseries. You
will make the scandal greater, the miseries greater--that is all.
And how do you know but that on the morrow of your acquittal, you
will find yourself confronting another court, a higher and more
severe one? How do you know but that your daughter, seized at
last by pity for the man you have killed, will not demand to know
by what right you have acted so, by what right you have made an
orphan of her child? How can you know but that her child also
may some day demand an accounting of you?"
Monsieur Loches let his hands fall, and stood, a picture of
crushed despair. "Tell me then," he said, in a faint voice,
"what ought I to do?"
"Forgive!"
For a while the doctor sat looking at him. "Sir," he said, at
last, "tell me one thing. You are inflexible; you feel you have
the right to be inflexible. But are you really so certain that
it was not your duty, once upon a time, to save your daughter
from the possibility of such misfortune?"
"What?" cried the other. "My duty? What do you mean?"
"I mean this, sir. When that marriage was being discussed, you
certainly took precautions to inform yourself about the financial
condition of your future son-in-law. You demanded that he should
prove to you that his stocks and bonds were actual value, listed
on the exchange. Also, you obtained some information about his
character.
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