ut he built his hopes upon
maternity. You had a child but you connived at its death, if you did not
deal the stroke."

How accurately Sendlingen had measured this woman! Another would have
cried out against him at this accusation--or burst into tears and so
disarmed a less adamantine man. She did not blanch; she did not lift her
hand to cover her unaltered features, but listened as idly as she would
to the last plaint of the fool who might blown out his brains at her
feet. The false Cantagnac pursued in his natural voice, rancid and
imperious, rolling out the gutturals like a heavy wagon thundering over
an old road.

"It follows, madame, that if you run to your husband at a faster gait
than you took to run away with the Baron of Linden, to inform him of my
proposition, I will tell him what you hear--I will accuse you of
infanticide, of unfaithfulness--"

"He knows that!" ejaculated the woman with irony and in defiance. "Ask
him, if you do not believe."

"Impossible."

"He would not say a word to anybody, and I would not have confessed only
I was driven to it."

"And he forgave you?"

"All!"

"He is very grand; and few men of my acquaintance would not at least
have caned you smartly. However, it was not long after the 'removal' of
your child, to put it mildly, that you threw yourself into the swim of
distractions, such as were to be had hereabouts. The old marchioness'
circle soon surrounded you; she was one of my company's instruments, and
from that time we counted on you as a coadjutrix some day."

"On me!"

"Precisely! to whom should we look for aid and complicity in our
concealed and wary work but to the embodiment of permanent and domestic
corruption? You are merely an impulse--we are a policy, and you will be
our bondwoman. Ah, we are merely men--not fools, scoundrels or gods like
your husband, for only such would tolerate depravity like yours."

"He is like a god," said Cesarine, trembling, in a low, hushed voice.
"When he speaks, it seems to me that it is what people call conscience."

"How long is it since you acknowledged this superiority?" sneered the
sham Marseillais.

"Too short a while, alas! some few minutes," sighed she.

"Well, granting he is at least a demi-god, he is a power which we have
an interest in destroying. Hercules became a nuisance to neglectful
stable-keepers, and like conservative institutions. Let us have done
with him. But, first, the final training of yourself. I repea