always come at your call. You
have boundless power over men: but remember that once you called love,
and love came to you; love as pure and true-hearted as may be on earth,
and as reverent as it was passionate; fond as a devoted woman's, as a
mother's love; a love so great indeed, that it was past the bounds of
reason. You played with it, and you committed a crime. Every woman has a
right to refuse herself to love which she feels she cannot share; and
if a man loves and cannot win love in return, he is not to be pitied,
he has no right to complain. But with a semblance of love to attract
an unfortunate creature cut off from all affection; to teach him to
understand happiness to the full, only to snatch it from him; to rob him
of his future of felicity; to slay his happiness not merely today,
but as long as his life lasts, by poisoning every hour of it and every
thought--this I call a fearful crime!"

"Monsieur----"

"I cannot allow you to answer me yet. So listen to me still. In any case
I have rights over you; but I only choose to exercise one--the right of
the judge over the criminal, so that I may arouse your conscience. If
you had no conscience left, I should not reproach you at all; but you
are so young! You must feel some life still in your heart; or so I like
to believe. While I think of you as depraved enough to do a wrong which
the law does not punish, I do not think you so degraded that you cannot
comprehend the full meaning of my words. I resume."

As he spoke the Duchess heard the smothered sound of a pair of bellows.
Those mysterious figures which she had just seen were blowing up the
fire, no doubt; the glow shone through the curtain. But Montriveau's
lurid face was turned upon her; she could not choose but wait with a
fast-beating heart and eyes fixed in a stare. However curious she felt,
the heat in Armand's words interested her even more than the crackling
of the mysterious flames.

"Madame," he went on after a pause, "if some poor wretch commits a
murder in Paris, it is the executioner's duty, you know, to lay hands on
him and stretch him on the plank, where murderers pay for their crimes
with their heads. Then the newspapers inform everyone, rich and poor, so
that the former are assured that they may sleep in peace, and the latter
are warned that they must be on the watch if they would live. Well, you
that are religious, and even a little of a bigot, may have masses said
for such a man's soul. You