The Count of Monte Cristo

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beautiful fig-tree my father had planted the day I was born, which
overshadowed the spot. Well, Albert, this money, which was formerly
designed to promote the comfort and tranquillity of the woman I adored,
may now, through strange and painful circumstances, be devoted to the
same purpose. Oh, feel for me, who could offer millions to that poor
woman, but who return her only the piece of black bread forgotten
under my poor roof since the day I was torn from her I loved. You are
a generous man, Albert, but perhaps you may be blinded by pride or
resentment; if you refuse me, if you ask another for what I have a right
to offer you, I will say it is ungenerous of you to refuse the life
of your mother at the hands of a man whose father was allowed by your
father to die in all the horrors of poverty and despair.

Albert stood pale and motionless to hear what his mother would decide
after she had finished reading this letter. Mercedes turned her eyes
with an ineffable look towards heaven. "I accept it," said she; "he has
a right to pay the dowry, which I shall take with me to some convent!"