“I swear to you—­”

“Ah! you have lied to me, do not swear!  We are about to leave.  Not for Italy.  It is good for those who love each other.  You do not know Fuentecarral?—­You are about to make its acquaintance.  It is your chateau now.  Yours, yours, since you are a Rosas!”

He again broke into laughter, such as a judge might indulge in who should mock at a condemned man.

“We are about to leave for Toledo.  You asked me, one day, about the castle in which I was born.  It is a prison, simply a prison.  It is habitable nevertheless.  But when one enters it, one rarely leaves it.  The device that you will bear is not very cheerful, but it is eloquent, you know it:  Hasta la muerte!—­“Until death!”—­What do you say about it?—­We shall be at Toledo in three days.  There are Duchesses de Rosas who will look on you, as you pass, over their plaited collars, and as there were neither adulteresses nor courtesans among them, they will probably ask what the Parisian is doing among them.  Well, I will answer them myself, that she is there to live out her life, you understand, there, face to face with me, as you have desired, as you said, and no one will have the right to sneer before the Duc de Rosas, who will see no one.  Oh! yes, I know that I belong to another period!  I am ridiculous, romantic!—­I am just that!—­You have awakened the half-Arab that lurks in the Castilian.  So much the worse for you if you have made me remember that I am a Rosas!”

She remained there, thunderstruck, hearing the duke come and go, his heels ringing in spite of the muffling of the carpet, like the heels of an armed man.

At times, when he passed quite close to her, his attenuated shadow was cast at full length over her and she was filled with terror.

She experienced a feeling of fear, as if she were before an open tomb, or that a puff of damp air chilled her face, or that she was suddenly enveloped by the odor of a cellar.  She shuddered and wished to plead with him, murmuring: 

“Pity!—­Pardon!—­”

“Madame la duchesse,” Rosas replied coldly, “I am one of those who may be deceived, no one is beyond the reach of treason; but I am not one of those who pardon.  I have been extremely foolish, ridiculous, credulous!  So much the worse for me!  So much the worse for you!  Rosas you are, Rosas you will be!  I have been your victim, eh?  Exactly, that is admitted:  you shall be mine!  Nothing could be juster, I think!  I wish no scandal resulting from a lawsuit or the notoriety of one or more duels.  I should become ridiculous in the eyes of others.  But in my own and your eyes, I do not propose to be!  I did not desire to be your lover, I have hardly been your husband.  Now I am your companion forever. Hasta la muerte! For me, the cold of an Escurial has no terror.  I am accustomed to it.  If it makes you quake, whose fault is it?  You willed it.  A double suicide!  We leave this evening!”