Agathe rushed in; from one
exclamation to another the mother gathered the fatal truth.
"He! to fail in honor! the son of Bridau to take the money that was
trusted to him!"
The widow trembled in every limb; her eyes dilated and then grew
fixed; she sat down and burst into tears.
"Where is he?" she cried amid the sobs. "Perhaps he has flung himself
into the Seine."
"You must not give up all hope," said Madame Descoings, "because a
poor lad has met with a bad woman who has led him to do wrong. Dear
me! we see that every day. Philippe has had such misfortunes! he has
had so little chance to be happy and loved that we ought not to be
surprised at his passion for that creature. All passions lead to
excess. My own life is not without reproach of that kind, and yet I
call myself an honest woman. A single fault is not vice; and after
all, it is only those who do nothing that are never deceived."
Agathe's despair overcame her so much that Joseph and the Descoings
were obliged to lessen Philippe's wrong-doings by assuring her that
such things happened in all families.
"But he is twenty-eight years old," cried Agathe, "he is no longer a
child."
Terrible revelation of the inward thought of the poor woman on the
conduct of her son.
"Mother, I assure you he thought only of your sufferings and of the
wrong he had done you," said Joseph.
"Oh, my God! let him come back to me, let him live, and I will forgive
all," cried the poor mother, to whose mind a horrible vision of
Philippe dragged dead out of the river presented itself.
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