leased from hell, and make the hungry and sick, rich and healthy."
"Even in your wickedness," said Edmond, softened, "you represent this girl as a noble one, who was well worthy of her heavenly origin."
"Heavenly," said the former, "to disgust: quite natural. That is just what I mean. To every beggar she would have freely given her all; but to me—she saw my love, my despair, how I only breathed in her looks, how I withered away, and my grief, my inexpressable misery would assuredly have driven me to the grave or to madness.—But that was indifferent to her, more even then indifferent, it was pleasing to her.
"But how is such a thing possible?" asked Edmond.
"Every thing has its drawback," resumed Lacoste. "It is but just, when senseless fools, such as I was, are ill-treated by women, that they may serve as an example to other simpletons. But she would however have leant to mercy’s rather than to justice's side,
