The Count of Monte Cristo

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all, I forbid you to ruin me."

The baroness had been tolerably composed until the name of Villefort had
been pronounced; but then she became pale, and, rising, as if touched by
a spring, she stretched out her hands as though conjuring an apparition;
she then took two or three steps towards her husband, as though to tear
the secret from him, of which he was ignorant, or which he withheld from
some odious calculation,--odious, as all his calculations were. "M. de
Villefort!--What do you mean?"

"I mean that M. de Nargonne, your first husband, being neither a
philosopher nor a banker, or perhaps being both, and seeing there was
nothing to be got out of a king's attorney, died of grief or anger at
finding, after an absence of nine months, that you had been enceinte
six. I am brutal,--I not only allow it, but boast of it; it is one
of the reasons of my success in commercial business. Why did he kill
himself instead of you? Because he had no cash to save. My life belongs