Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/123

Rh "Oh, Father!" said I, still sobbing like a child, "try to conceive the most horrible act of cruelty, imagine the most atrocious of barbarities, and you will know the deed which that vile wretch G M has had the baseness to commit! Alas! He has crushed my very heart within me; never shall I recover from this blow! Let me tell you all," I added, my voice choking with tears. "You are kind and good—you will pity me!"

I told him briefly the story of my long and unconquerable passion for Manon; of the flourishing condition of our fortunes before we had been fleeced by our own servants; of the offers which G M had made to my mistress; of the bargain they had concluded together, and of the way in which it had been broken. I represented things to him, I must own, in the light most favorable to ourselves.

"Now you perceive," I went on, "the source of M. de G M's zeal for my reformation. He commanded influence enough to have me confined here purely from motives of revenge. I could forgive him were this all, but, Father, it is not all. He has had my dearer half ruthlessly torn from me and thrown into ignominious imprisonment in the Hôpital. Had he not the audacity to tell me so this very day with his own lips? In the Hôpital, my Father—think of it! Merciful Heaven! My