tears; "I did not want you to know that you had married me to such a
man as he is. He is just the same in private life--body and soul and
conscience--the same through and through--hideous! I hate him; I
despise him! Yes, after all that that despicable Nucingen has told me,
I cannot respect him any longer. A man capable of mixing himself up in
such affairs, and of talking about them to me as he did, without the
slightest scruple,--it is because I have read him through and through
that I am afraid of him. He, my husband, frankly proposed to give me
my liberty, and do you know what that means? It means that if things
turn out badly for him, I am to play into his hands, and be his
stalking-horse."

"But there is law to be had! There is a Place de Greve for sons-in-law
of that sort," cried her father; "why, I would guillotine him myself
if there was no headsman to do it."

"No, father, the law cannot touch him. Listen, this is what he says,
stripped of all his circumlocutions--'Take your choice, you and no one
else can be my accomplice; either everything is lost, you are ruined
and have not a farthing, or you will let me carry this business
through myself.' Is that plain speaking? He _must_ have my assistance.
He is assured that his wife will deal fairly by him; he knows that I
shall leave his money to him and be content with my own. It is an
unholy and dishonest compact, and he holds out threats of ruin to
compel me to consent to it. He is buying my conscience, and the price
is liberty to be Eugene's wife in all but name. 'I connive at your
errors, and you allow me to commit crimes and ruin poor families!' Is
that sufficiently explicit? Do you know what he means by speculations?
He buys up land in his own name, then he finds men of straw to run up
houses upon it. These men make a bargain with a contractor to build