Hector, thus taunted, tried to get up and reply; but his legs would not support him, and his throat only gave hoarse, unintelligible sounds.  Bertha, as she looked at the two men, recognized her error with rage and indignation.  Her husband, at this moment, seemed to her sublime; his eyes gleamed, his face was radiant; while the other—­ the other!  She felt sick with disgust when she but glanced toward him.

Thus all these deceptive chimeras after which she had run, love, passion, poetry, were already hers; she had held them in her hands and she had not been able to perceive it.  But what was Sauvresy’s purpose?

He continued, painfully: 

“This then, is our situation; you have killed me, you are going to be free, yet you hate and despise each other—­”

He stopped, and seemed to be suffocating; he tried to raise himself on his pillow and to sit up in bed, but found himself too feeble.

“Bertha,” said he, “help me get up.”

She leaned over the bed, and taking her husband in her arms, succeeded in placing him as he wished.  He appeared more at ease in his new position, and took two or three long breaths.

“Now,” he said, “I should like something to drink.  The doctor lets me take a little old wine, if I have a fancy for it; give me some.”

She hastened to bring him a glass of wine, which he emptied and handed back to her.

“There wasn’t any poison in it, was there?” he asked.

This ghastly question and the smile which accompanied it, melted Bertha’s callousness; remorse had already taken possession of her, as her disgust of Tremorel increased.

“Poison?” she cried, eagerly, “never!”

“You must give me some, though, presently, so as to help me to die.”

“You die, Clement?  No; I want you to live, so that I may redeem the past.  I am a wretch, and have committed a hideous crime—­but you are good.  You will live; I don’t ask to be your wife, but only your servant.  I will love you, humiliate myself, serve you on my knees, so that some day, after ten, twenty years of expiation, you will forgive me!”

Hector in his mortal terror and anguish, was scarcely able to distinguish what was taking place.  But he saw a dim ray of hope in Bertha’s gestures and accent, and especially in her last words; he thought that perhaps it was all going to end and be forgotten, and that Sauvresy would pardon them.  Half-rising, he stammered: 

“Yes, forgive us, forgive us!”

Sauvresy’s eyes glittered, and his angry voice vibrated as if it came from a throat of metal.

“Forgive!” cried he, “pardon!  Did you have pity on me during all this year that you have been playing with my happiness, during this fortnight that you have been mixing poison in all my potions?  Pardon?  What, are you fools?  Why do you think I held my tongue, when I discovered your infamy, and let myself be poisoned, and threw the doctors off the scent?  Do you really hope that I did this to prepare a scene of heartrending farewells, and to give you my benediction at the end?  Ah, know me better!”