breathing into this
present time from some distant other world, seizes powerfully upon me.
I even feel, at such times, that the deeds which my Evil Star has
committed by means of me, may be charged to the account of my immortal
soul, though it has no part in them. In one of those moods I determined
that I would make a beautiful diamond crown for the Virgin in the
Church of St. Eustache. But the indescribable dread always came upon
me, stronger than ever, when I set to work at it, so that I left it off
altogether. Now it seems to me that, in presenting Mademoiselle Scuderi
with the finest work I have ever turned out, I am offering a humble
sacrifice to goodness and virtue personified, and imploring their
powerful intercession.' Cardillac, well acquainted with all the minutiae
of your manner of life, told me the how and the when to take the
ornaments to you. My whole Being rejoiced, for Heaven seemed to be
showing me, through the atrocious Cardillac, the way to escape from the
hell in which I was being tortured. Quite contrarily to Cardillac's
wish, I resolved that I would get access to you and speak with you. As
Anne Brusson's son, and your former pet, I thought I would throw myself
at your feet and tell you everything. Out of consideration for the
nameless misery which a disclosure of the secret would bring upon
Madelon, I knew that you would keep it, but that your grand and
brilliant intellect would have been sure to find means to put an end to
Cardillac's wickedness without disclosing it. Do not ask me what those
means were to have been; I cannot tell. But that you would rescue
Madelon and me I believed as firmly as I do in the intercession of the
Holy Virgin. You know, Mademoiselle, that my intention was frustrated
that night; but I did not lose hope of being more fortunate another
time. By-and-by Cardillac suddenly lost all his good spirits; he crept
moodily about, uttered unintelligible words, and worked his arms as if
warding off something hostile. His mind seemed full of evil thoughts.
For a whole morning he had been going on in this way. At last he sat
down at the work-table, sprang up again angrily, looked out of window,
and then said, gravely and gloomily, 'I wish Henrietta of England had
had my jewels.' Those words filled me with terror. I knew that his
diseased mind was possessed again by the terrible murder-spectre, that
the voice of the demon was loud again in his ears. I saw your life
threatened by the hor