Her love for me was nothing but hypocrisy! her devotion, falsehood! her caresses, lies! And I adored her! Ah! why can I not take back all the embraces I bestowed on her in exchange for her Judas kisses?
And for what was all this heroism of deception, this caution, this duplicity?
To betray me more securely, to despoil me, to rob me, to give to her bastard all that lawfully appertained to me; my name, a noble name, my fortune, a princely inheritance!" "We are getting near it!" thought old Tabaret, who was fast relapsing into the colleague of M.Gevrol; then aloud he said, "This is very serious, all that you have been saying, my dear Noel, terribly serious.
We must believe Madame Gerdy possessed of an amount of audacity and ability rarely to be met with in a woman.

She must have been assisted, advised, compelled perhaps.

Who have been her accomplices?
She could never have managed this unaided; perhaps her husband himself." "Her husband!" interrupted the advocate, with a laugh.

"Ah! you too have believed her a widow.

Pshaw! She never had a husband, the defunct Gerdy never existed.