I was a bastard, dear M.Tabaret, very much a bastard; Noel, son of the girl Gerdy and an unknown father!" "Ah!" cried the old fellow; "that then was the reason why your marriage with Mademoiselle Levernois was broken off four years ago ?" "Yes, my friend, that was the reason.

And what misfortunes might have been averted by this marriage with a young girl whom I loved! However I did not complain to her whom I then called my mother.

She wept, she accused herself, she seemed ready to die of grief: and I, poor fool! I consoled her as best I could, I dried her tears, and excused her in her own eyes.

No, there was no husband.

Do such women as she have husbands?
She was my father's mistress; and, on the day when he had had enough of her, he took up his hat and threw her three hundred thousand francs, the price of the pleasures she had given him." Noel would probably have continued much longer to pour forth his furious denunciations; but M.Tabaret stopped him.