straight path of imaginary duty prescribed by law, that only to make you
understand wherein you have failed towards me, I should be obliged to
enter into details which would offend your dignity, and instruct you in
matters which would seem to you to undermine all morality."

"And you dare to speak of morality when you have but just left the house
where you have dissipated your children's fortune in debaucheries?"
cried the Countess, maddened by her husband's reticence.

"There, madame, I must correct you," said the Count, coolly interrupting
his wife. "Though Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille is rich, it is at
nobody's expense. My uncle was master of his fortune, and had several
heirs. In his lifetime, and out of pure friendship, regarding her as his
niece, he gave her the little estate of Bellefeuille. As for anything
else, I owe it to his liberality--"

"Such conduct is only worthy of a Jacobin!" said the sanctimonious
Angelique.

"Madame, you are forgetting that your own father was one of the Jacobins
whom you scorn so uncharitably," said the Count severely. "Citizen
Bontems was signing death-warrants at a time when my uncle was doing
France good service."

Madame de Granville was silenced. But after a short pause, the
remembrance of what she had just seen reawakened in her soul the
jealousy which nothing can kill in a woman's heart, and she murmured,
as if to herself--"How can a woman thus destroy her own soul and that of
others?"

"Bless me, madame," replied the Count, tired of this dialogue, "you
yourself may some day have to answer that question." The Countess was
scared. "You perhaps will be held excused by the merciful Judge, who
will weigh our sins," he went on, "in consideration of the conviction
with which you have worked out my misery. I do not hate you--I hate
those who have perverted your heart and your reason. You have prayed
for me, just as Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille has given me her heart
and crowned my life with love. You should have been my mistress and the
prayerful saint by turns.--Do me the justice to confess that I am no
reprobate, no debauchee. My life was cleanly. Alas! after seven years
of wretchedness, the craving for happiness led me by an imperceptible
descent to love another woman and make a second home. And do not imagine
that I am singular; there are in this city thousands of husbands, all
led by various causes to live this twofold life."

"Great God!" cried the Countess. "How hea