You shall call me a fool; you shall say I am a bad father; you may even tell me that I am ignorant and incapable.

And when I hear you say those words I will kiss your hands.
You may beat me, if you will, and when you strike I will bless you as the best of daughters, remembering that you have given me your blood." "If it were my blood, my life's blood, I would give it to you," she cried; "but can I let Science cut the throats of my brothers and sister?
No.

Cease, cease!" she said, wiping her tears and pushing aside her father's caressing hands.
"Sixty thousand francs and two months," he said, rising in anger; "that is all I want: but my daughter stands between me and fame and wealth.
I curse you!" he went on; "you are no daughter of mine, you are not a woman, you have no heart, you will never be a mother or a wife!--Give it to me, let me take it, my little one, my precious child, I will love you forever,"-- and he stretched his hand with a movement of hideous energy towards the gold.
"I am helpless against physical force; but God and the great Claes see us now," she said, pointing to the picture.
"Try to live, if you can, with your father's blood upon you," cried Balthazar, looking at her with abhorrence.

He rose, glanced round the room, and slowly left it.

When he reached the door he turned as a beggar might have done and implored his daughter with a gesture, to which she replied by a negative motion of her head.
"Farewell, my daughter," he said, gently, "may you live happy!" When he had disappeared, Marguerite remained in a trance which separated her from earth; she was no longer in the parlor; she lost consciousness of physical existence; she had wings, and soared amid the immensities of the moral world, where Thought contracts the limits both of Time and Space, where a divine hand lifts the veil of the Future.