Madame Melmotte came and stood over the girl, but for some minutes spoke never a word.  Marie lay on the sofa, all in a heap, with her hair dishevelled and her dress disordered, breathing hard, but uttering no sobs and shedding no tears.  The stepmother,—­if she might so be called,—­did not think of attempting to persuade where her husband had failed.  She feared Melmotte so thoroughly, and was so timid in regard to her own person, that she could not understand the girl’s courage.  Melmotte was to her an awful being, powerful as Satan,—­whom she never openly disobeyed, though she daily deceived him, and was constantly detected in her deceptions.  Marie seemed to her to have all her father’s stubborn, wicked courage, and very much of his power.  At...