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Updated: June 10, 2025
To what depths of meanness and infamy had she descended! and to what avail had been all her aspirations of ambition and grandeur? She was at the mercy of a wretch of Daumon, in fact. She was forced to go as a suppliant to a man whom she had loved so well that she now hated him with a deadly hatred. But she did not hesitate for a moment.
Daumon made no reply, and his silence so plainly showed Norbert that the Counsellor did not trust him, that he repeated the question in an angry voice. "Your blind subservience to your father is too well known." "You believe that I should confess everything to him?" "You yourself told me that when his eyes were fixed on yours you could not avoid yielding to his will."
This insolence absolutely struck Diana dumb, and Daumon had disappeared round a turning of the road before she could find words to crush him for his vile attempt at extortion. She felt that he was capable of keeping his word, even if by so doing he seriously injured himself without gaining any advantage. A nature like Diana's always looks danger boldly in the face.
"How could I?" retorted she. "What can a girl do in opposition to the will of all her family, when she has to choose between the alternative that she loathes, or a life-long seclusion in a convent?" Daumon shook with laughter, as he kept his ear closely to the keyhole. "Good business," muttered he. "Not so bad. Here's a little girl from a convent.
Daumon was engaged in writing when the housekeeper ushered Diana into the office. He rose to his feet, and, taking off his velvet skull cap, made a profound bow, advancing at the same time a chair for his visitor's accommodation. Though Diana knew nothing of this man, she was not so unsophisticated as Norbert, and was not imposed upon by the air of servile obsequiousness that he assumed.
Had not the inexorable old man once said, "You will marry a woman of wealth?" But in the event of this matter being brought up, Norbert swore that he would no longer be obedient, but would resist to the last; and he calculated on receiving assistance from Daumon.
You must be twenty-five years of age before you can marry and give the shelter of your name to the woman whom you have chosen for your wife." This was exactly the explanation for which Daumon had been waiting. "Good again, my young lady," cried he. "And so this is why she came here. There is some credit in giving a lesson to so apt a pupil."
The poor creature, with garrulous volubility, exhibited a summons which she had just received, and said that she owed three hundred francs, and that as she could no longer pay the interest, she had been summoned, and that her little property would be seized, and so a finishing stroke would be put to her troubles. "It is the Counsellor," said she, "that rogue Daumon, who has done all this."
In his inmost heart Daumon was filled with the utmost delight; he now understood why Diana had taken so long in reaching his house; it was because her interview with the Duke had almost overcome her. She soon, however, recovered her energy, and shook off the languor that seemed to cling to her limbs, and turning towards her host, said abruptly,
His thoughts often wandered to Daumon; but he had made inquiries, and had heard that the Counsellor was a most dangerous man, who would stick at nothing; but for all that, he had made up his mind to go back to him again for further advice, though his better nature warned him of the precipice on the brink of which he was standing.
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