"You must keep quiet," I answered. "Let nothing irritate you. I
will leave a composing draught with your daughter, which she will
give you immediately. I will see you in the morning. You will be
well in a week."
"Thank God!" came in a murmur from a dusk corner near the door. I
turned, and beheld the dim outline of the girl, standing with
clasped hands in the gloom of the dim chamber.
"My daughter!" screamed the old man, once more leaping up in the
bed with renewed vitality. "You have seen her, then? When?
Where? Oh, may a thousand cur--"
"Father! father! Anything--anything but that. Don't, don't curse
me!" And the poor girl, rushing in, flung herself sobbing on her
knees beside his pallet.
"Ah, brigand! You are there, are you? Sir," said he, turning to
me, "I am the most unhappy man in the world. Talk of Sisyphus
rolling the ever-recoiling stone--of Prometheus gnawed by the
vulture since the birth of time. The fables yet live. There is my
rock, forever crushing me back! there is my eternal vulture,
feeding upon my heart! There! there! there!" And, with an awful
gesture of malediction and hatred, he pointed with his wounded
hand, swathed and shapeless with bandages, at the cowering,
sobbing, wordless woman by his side.
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