pression, when you, madame, completed the measure of your
guilt by adding infidelity to it."

"It is false," murmured the Countess. "You have been deceived."

M. de Mussidan laughed a grim and terrible laugh.

"Not so," answered he; "I have every proof. This seems strange to you,
does it? You have always looked upon me as one of those foolish husbands
that may be duped without suspicion on their parts. You thought that
you had placed a veil over my eyes, but I could see through it when you
little suspected that I could do so. Why did I not tell you this before?
Because I had not ceased to love you, and this fatal love was stronger
than all honor, pride, and even self-respect." He poured out this
tirade with inconceivable rapidity, and the Countess listened to it in
awe-struck silence. "I kept silence," continued the Count, "because I
knew that on the day I uttered the truth you would be entirely lost to
me. I might have killed you; I had every right to do so, but I could not
live apart from you. You will never know how near the shadow of death
has been to you. When I have kissed you, I have fancied that your lips
were soiled with the kisses of others, and I could hardly keep my
hands from clutching your ivory neck until life was extinct, and failed
utterly to decide whether I loved you or hated you the most."

"Have mercy, Octave! have mercy!" pleaded the unhappy woman.

"You are surprised, I can see," answered he, with a dark smile; "yet
I could give you further food for wonder if I pleased, but I have said
enough now."

A tremor passed over the frame of the Countess. Was her husband
acquainted with the existence of the letters? All hinged upon this.
He could not have read them, or he would have spoken in very different
terms, had he known the mystery contained in them.

"Let me speak," began she.

"Not a word," replied her husband.

"On my honor--"

"All is ended; but I must not forget to tell you of one of my youthful
follies. You may laugh at it, but that signifies nothing. I actually
believed that I could gain your affection. I said to myself that one day
you would be moved by my deep passion for you. I was a fool. As if love
or affection could ever penetrate the icy barriers that guarded your
heart."

"You have no pity," wailed she.

He gazed upon her with eyes in which the pent-up anger of twenty years
blazed and consumed slowly. "And you, what are you? I drained to the
bottom the poisoned cup held