"It is a hundred times less cruel than the suspicion to which you abandon her. Did you not see just now that instead of reproaching the gamester who had ruined her, she experienced only a tender emotion for the husband she loved? Henri," continued the Prince, taking his son's hand in his own, "when I told you how once in my life I had erred, when I confessed to you a fault which yet makes my cheek blush, I sought to make you pause on the abyss into which you were near plunging. In telling you this secret I deprived myself of the right of severity to you. When, in a letter I wrote to you at Naples, I spoke lightly of a loss at cards I had undergone, I did not doubt that some day I would be obliged to tell you all that had taken place. I was wrong, however, in forbidding you to beware of what I had spoken of; for I should have known that there are passions, like other diseases, which a father transmits to his children. The body, like the soul, inherits them. I however pardon and forget all I have mentioned." Henri clasped the old man's hand, and Aminta kissed the Prince. "I will," said the latter, "only pardon you on the terms imposed on me by my generous friend Rovero. You will swear to me, on your honor, that you will never play again, and I will confide in you as he did in me." "I do swear," said the Marquis, "and will die if I ever break my oath." "Now listen to me, my children," said the Prince, kindly; "I have a hundred thousand francs a year--I will allow you fifty. A similar sum satisfies me. To protect you, however, from all temptations to extravagance, I give you the income and not the capital, and as a reward of my indulgence, as a recompense of my courage in making the confession of a great error of my life, make your wife happy, reward her by tenderness for the care you have subjected her to, for the uneasiness she has known, and my heart will be gratified for the bliss she will owe you, as something to discharge my debt to her father."