"You are not a man to torture me; you would crush me without making me suffer if I were guilty." "What do you expect me to know, Marie ?" "Well! about Nathan." "You think you love him," he replied; "but you love a phantom made of words." "Then you know--" "All," he said.
The word fell on Marie's head like the blow of a club.
"If you wish it, I will know nothing," he continued.

"You are standing on the brink of a precipice, my child, and I must draw you from it.

I have already done something.

See!" He drew from his pocket her letter of guarantee and the four notes endorsed by Schmucke, and let the countess recognize them; then he threw them into the fire.
"What would have happened to you, my poor Marie, three months hence ?" he said.

"The sheriffs would have taken you to a public court-room.