"
"Andre!" His mother swung upon him with that cry. And yet again
that question. "Have you no heart? What has he ever done to you
that you should nurse so bitter a hatred of him?"
"You shall hear, madame. Once, two years ago in this very room I
told you of a man who had brutally killed my dearest friend and
debauched the girl I was to have married. M. de La Tour d'Azyr is
that man."
A moan was her only answer. She covered her face with her hands.
The Marquis rose slowly to his feet again. He came slowly forward,
his smouldering eyes scanning his son's face.
"You are hard," he said grimly. "But I recognize the hardness.
It derives from the blood you bear."
"Spare me that," said Andre-Louis.
The Marquis inclined his head. "I will not mention it again. But
I desire that you should at least understand me, and you too, Therese.
You accuse me, sir, of murdering your dearest friend. I will admit
that the means employed were perhaps unworthy. But what other means
were at my command to meet an urgency that every day since then
proves to have existed? M.
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