...of avarice

Lizaveta Ivanovna listened to him in horror. So the passionate letters, the ardent demands, the audacious, persistent pursuit - all this had not been love! What his soul craved was money! She herself had no power to assuage his desires and make him happy. The poor ward had been nothing but a blind accomplice to a brigand, to the murderer of her aged benefactress! She wept bitterly in her belated, anguished remorse. Hermann watched her in silence; he too was in torment, but what troubled his stern soul was neither the poor girl's tears nor the surprising charm of her grief. Nor did he feel any pang of conscience at the thought of the old woman's death. Only one thing appalled him; the irrevocable loss of a secret that was to have brought him wealth.

[The Queen of Spades, Pushkin, A. S.]