Chapter 8 No.8

Frügger waited until he heard her enter her apartment. Then he closed the door. A smile of satisfaction played around the corners of his mouth, and a look of triumph lightened his features. He remained at first motionless and silent. Little by little the air of contentment disappeared and gave place to one of anxiety. His face contracted; he rose and commenced to walk back and forth in the room.

"If she should change her ideas, retract the promise that I have extorted from her; if she should force me to consent to her marriage, or worse still, marry without it, what could I do then?-Oppose her design?--Impossible!-Here," said he, taking from an escritoire a parchment covered with several seals, "here is this abhorred writing signed by the hand of my wife, which exacts that when my daughter attains the age of twenty-five years-or sooner, if she wishes to marry-that I shall give her half of my fortune, and to complete the misfortune, confides to Hochstetter the guardianship of my child! Ah! my wife knew well what she did in making this will! She knew me, and was not ignorant that this gold, these bonds, these treasures, were my life, and that I would give my soul to preserve them, and would willingly sacrifice my eternal salvation rather than be separated from them. Part with them? Malediction! Another to possess and have in his power these riches, fruits of so many days of anxiety and nights filled with anguish-of so many unfortunate speculations!-Another to manage this wealth so laboriously amassed-to have the right to dispose of my money, to squander it perhaps, for I know these Hochstetters; they live like princes and entertain all the nobles of the land.-Grand Dieu! Not to be able to rejoice daily over the sight of these riches; to part with half. Never! that shall never be! I!-Yes! I will sooner kill the unfortunate child."

In exclaiming thus, the expression of his face was so terrible that it was almost fiendish. The violence of his emotions was so powerful that he was himself startled by their intensity. After a few moments of reflection he became more calm.

"I am wrong to agitate myself thus; she will not marry; she has promised it; and then have I not the testament in my own hands? But Hochstetter knows it; he possesses proofs of its existence. I fear he has a copy of it. Oh! he knows very well what he has done! My daughter, the wife of his son-le misérable! To abuse thus my friendship, my confidence; that calls for revenge. But no, I have merited it; it is my fault. She loves the son and respects the father more than she does me. I could cry with rage."

Pronouncing these words with ferocity he fell back upon his seat, somber and discouraged, and remained plunged in thought.