Bertha was sobbing; she tried to take her husband’s hand, but he rudely repulsed her.

“Enough of these falsehoods,” said he.  “Enough of these perfidies.  I hate you!  You don’t seem to perceive that hate is all that is still living in me.”

Sauvresy’s expression was at this moment ferocious.  “It is almost two months since I learned the truth; it broke me up, soul and body.  Ah, it cost me a good deal to keep quiet—­it almost killed me.  But one thought sustained me; I longed to avenge myself.  My mind was always bent on that; I searched for a punishment as great as this crime; I found none, could find none.  Then you resolved to poison me.  Mark this—­that the very day when I guessed about the poison I had a thrill of joy, for I had discovered my vengeance!”

A constantly increasing terror possessed Bertha, and now stupefied her, as well as Tremorel.

“Why do you wish for my death?  To be free and marry each other?  Very well; I wish that also.  The Count de Tremorel will be Madame Sauvresy’s second husband.”

“Never!” cried Bertha.  “No, never!”

“Never!” echoed Hector.

“It shall be so; nevertheless because I wish it.  Oh, my precautions have been well taken, and you can’t escape me.  Now hear me.  When I became certain that I was being poisoned, I began to write a minute history of all three of us; I did more—­I have kept a journal day by day and hour by hour, narrating all the particulars of my illness; then I kept some of the poison which you gave me—­”

Bertha made a gesture of denial.  Sauvresy proceeded: 

“Certainly, I kept it, and I will tell you how.  Every time that Bertha gave me a suspicious potion, I kept a portion of it in my mouth, and carefully ejected it into a bottle which I kept hid under the bolster.  Ah, you ask how I could have done all this without your suspecting it, or without being seen by any of the servants.  Know that hate is stronger than love, be sure that I have left nothing to chance, nor have I forgotten anything.”

Hector and Bertha looked at Sauvresy with a dull, fixed gaze.  They forced themselves to understand him, but could scarcely do so.

“Let’s finish,” resumed the dying man, “my strength is waning.  This very morning, the bottle containing the poison I have preserved, our biographies, and the narrative of my poisoning, have been put in the hands of a trustworthy and devoted person, whom, even if you knew him, you could not corrupt.  He does not know the contents of what has been confided to him.  The day that you get married this friend will give them all up to you.  If, however, you are not married in a year from to-day, he has instructions to put these papers and this bottle into the hands of the officers of the law.”

A double cry of horror and anguish told Sauvresy that he had well chosen his vengeance.

“And reflect,” added he, “that this package once delivered up to justice, means the galleys, if not the scaffold for both of you.”