h, but you do not know why I killed him,--it was because the dead man
had dared to tell me that the wife I adored with all the passion of my
soul was unfaithful to me."

Words of eager denial rose to the lips of the Countess; but her husband
went on coldly, "And it was all true, for I heard all later on.

"Poor Montlouis! _he_ was really loved. There was a little shop-girl,
who toiled hard for daily bread, but she was a thousand times more
honorable than the haughty woman of noble race that I had just married."

"Have mercy, Octave."

"Yes, and she fell a victim to her love for Montlouis. Had he lived,
he would have made her his wife. After his death, she could no longer
conceal her fault. In small towns the people are without mercy; and when
she left the hospital with her baby at her breast, the women pelted
her with mud. But for me," continued the Count, "she would have died of
hunger. Poor girl! I did not allow her much, but with it she managed
to give her son a decent education. He has now grown up, and whatever
happens, his future is safe."

Had M. de Mussidan and his wife been less deeply engaged in this hideous
recital, they would have heard the stifled sobs that came from the
adjoining room.

The Count felt a certain kind of savage pleasure in venting the rage,
that had for years been suppressed, upon the shrinking woman before him.
"Would it not be a cruel injustice, madame, to draw a comparison between
you and this unhappy girl? Have you always been deaf to the whisperings
of conscience? and have you never thought of the future punishment
which most certainly awaits you? for you have failed in the duties of
daughter, wife, and mother."

Generally the Countess cared little for her husband's reproaches, well
deserved as they might be, but to-day she quailed before him.

"With your entrance into my life," continued the Count, "came shame and
misfortune. When people saw you so gay and careless under the oak-trees
of your ancestral home, who could have suspected that your heart
contained a dark secret? When my only wish was to win you for my wife,
how did I know that you were weaving a hideous conspiracy against me?
Even when so young, you were a monster of dissimulation and hypocrisy.
Guilt never overshadowed your brow, nor did falsehood dim the frankness
of your eyes. On the day of our marriage I mentally reproached myself
for any unworthiness. Wretched fool that I was, I was happy beyond all
power of ex