ible hypocrite of all.
It was this--the realization of this truth kept me awake all night. For
two years I have persecuted by every means in my power... M. de La Tour
d'Azyr."

He paused before uttering the name, paused as if hesitating how to speak
of him.

"And in those two years I have deceived myself as to the motive that was
spurring me. He spoke of me last night as the evil genius of his life,
and himself he recognized the justice of this. It may be that he was
right, and because of that it is probable that even had he not killed
Philippe de Vilmorin, things would still have been the same. Indeed,
to-day I know that they must have been. That is why I call myself a
hypocrite, a poor, self-duping hypocrite."

"But why, Andre?"

He stood still and looked at her. "Because he sought you, Aline.
Because in that alone he must have found me ranged against him, utterly
intransigeant. Because of that I must have strained every nerve to bring
him down--so as to save you from becoming the prey of your own ambition.

"I wish to speak of him no more than I must. After this, I trust never
to speak of him again. Before the lines of our lives crossed, I knew him
for what he was, I knew the report of him that ran the countryside.
Even then I found him detestable. You heard him allude last night to the
unfortunate La Binet. You heard him plead, in extenuation of his fault,
his mode of life, his rearing. To that there is no answer, I suppose. He
conforms to type. Enough! But to me, he was the embodiment of evil, just
as you have always been the embodiment of good; he was the embodiment
of sin, just as you are the embodiment of purity. I had enthroned you so
high, Aline, so high, and yet no higher than your place. Could I, then,
suffer that you should be dragged down by ambition, could I suffer the
evil I detested to mate with the good I loved? What could have come of
it but your own damnation, as I told you that day at Gavrillac? Because
of that my detestation of him became a personal, active thing. I
resolved to save you at all costs from a fate so horrible. Had you
been able to tell me that you loved him it would have been different.
I should have hoped that in a union sanctified by love you would have
raised him to your own pure heights. But that out of considerations of
worldly advancement you should lovelessly consent to mate with him...
Oh, it was vile and hopeless. And so I fought him--a rat fighting a
lion--fought him r