"He came to me next morning, and, without further preamble, addressed me as follows: 'In order to prevent a recurrence of the disgraceful scene of yesterday, I think proper to inform you, that, immediately that decency permits both you and myself to throw off our mourning, it is my intention to celebrate my marriage with Madame Roland, which will compel you to treat her with the respect and deference due to my wife. For certain reasons, it is expedient you should marry before me. You will have as a dowry your mother's fortune, amounting to more than a million francs. From this very day, I shall take the necessary steps to form a suitable match for you, and, for that purpose, I shall accept one of the many offers I have received for your hand.' After this conversation, I lived more alone than ever, never meeting my father except at mealtimes, which generally passed off in the utmost silence. So really dull and lonely was my present existence, that I only waited for my father to propose any suitor he might approve of, to accept him with perfect willingness. Madame Roland, having relinquished all further ill-natured remarks upon the memory of my deceased parent, indemnified herself by inflicting on me the continual pain of seeing her appropriate to herself the various trifles my dear mother had exclusively made use of. Her easy chair, embroidery-frame, the books which composed her private library, even a screen I myself had embroidered for her, and in the centre of which were our united ciphers: this woman laid her sacrilegious hands on all the elegant articles with which my mother's taste and my affection had ornamented her apartments." "I can well imagine all the horror these profanations must have caused you." "Still, great as were my sufferings, the state of loneliness, in which I found myself, rendered them even greater." "And you had no one, no person in whom you could confide?"