sneer, stinging as a blow from a whip, which must have left its
mark in red on his face, the wretch rejoined, gasping for breath:

"Enough, enough; do not mock me so. It is too horrible, after all that
has gone. In God's name doesn't it touch you to be loved as I love you,
sacrificing everything to you, wealth, honor, reputation? Come, look at
me. However carefully applied my mask may have been, I have torn it off
for you, I have torn it off before all the world. And now, look! here is
the hypocrite!"

There was a dull sound as of two knees falling upon the floor. And mad
with love, stammering, humbling himself before her, he implored her to
consent to marry him, to give him the right to go everywhere with her,
to defend her; then words failed him, his voice was choked by a
passionate sob, so deep, so heart-rending, that it might well have
touched any heart, especially in presence of that gorgeous scenery lying
impassive in the perfumed, enervating heat. But Felicia was not moved,
and her manner was still haughty as she said brusquely: "Enough of this,
Jenkins, what you ask is impossible. We have nothing to conceal from
each other; and after your confidences of a moment ago, I propose to
tell you something which it wounds my pride to tell, but which your
persistence seems to me to deserve. I was Mora's mistress."

Paul was not unprepared for that. And yet that sweet voice burdened with
such a confession was so sad amid the intoxicating aromas of that lovely
blue atmosphere, that his heart was sorely oppressed, and he had in his
mouth the taste of tears left by an unavowed regret.

"I knew it," replied Jenkins in a hollow voice. "I have here the letters
you wrote him."

"My letters?"

"Oh! I will give them back to you; take them. I know them by heart, by
dint of reading and re-reading them. That is the kind of thing that
hurts when one is in love. But I have undergone other tortures. When I
think that it was I--" he paused, he was suffocating--"I who was
destined to furnish combustion for your flames, to warm that frozen
lover, to send him to you, ardent and rejuvenated! Ah! he made away with
the pearls, I tell you. It was of no use for me to say no, he always
wanted more. At last I went mad. 'You want to burn, villain. Well,
burn!'"

* * * * *

Paul sprang to his feet in dismay. Was he about to hear the confession
of a crime?

But he had not to undergo the shame of listening fur