he knew not her life. Was she married, widow, maiden? Was she free? Of
what family was she? Were there snares, traps, dangers about her? Of the
gallantry existing on the idle heights of society; the caves on those
summits, in which savage charmers dream amid the scattered skeletons of
the loves which they have already preyed on; of the extent of tragic
cynicism to which the experiments of a woman may attain who believes
herself to be beyond the reach of man--of things such as these
Gwynplaine had no idea. Nor had he even in his mind materials out of
which to build up a conjecture, information concerning such things being
very scanty in the social depths in which he lived. Still he detected a
shadow; he felt that a mist hung over all this brightness. Did he
understand it? No. Could he guess at it? Still less. What was there
behind that letter? One pair of folding doors opening before him,
another closing on him, and causing him a vague anxiety. On the one side
an avowal; on the other an enigma--avowal and enigma, which, like two
mouths, one tempting, the other threatening, pronounce the same word,
Dare!

Never had perfidious chance taken its measures better, nor timed more
fitly the moment of temptation. Gwynplaine, stirred by spring, and by
the sap rising in all things, was prompt to dream the dream of the
flesh. The old man who is not to be stamped out, and over whom none of
us can triumph, was awaking in that backward youth, still a boy at
twenty-four.

It was just then, at the most stormy moment of the crisis, that the
offer was made him, and the naked bosom of the Sphinx appeared before
his dazzled eyes. Youth is an inclined plane. Gwynplaine was stooping,
and something pushed him forward. What? the season, and the night. Who?
the woman.

Were there no month of April, man would be a great deal more virtuous.
The budding plants are a set of accomplices! Love is the thief, Spring
the receiver.

Gwynplaine was shaken.

There is a kind of smoke of evil, preceding sin, in which the conscience
cannot breathe. The obscure nausea of hell comes over virtue in
temptation. The yawning abyss discharges an exhalation which warns the
strong and turns the weak giddy. Gwynplaine was suffering its mysterious
attack.

Dilemmas, transient and at the same time stubborn, were floating before
him. Sin, presenting itself obstinately again and again to his mind, was
taking form. The morrow, midnight? London Bridge, the page? Should