“No, doctor,” said Rose, “you deceive yourself.”

“Why, what was the date of the Moniteur, then?” asked Aubertin, in great agitation.

“Considerably later than this,” said Camille.

“I don’t think so; the journal! where is it?”

“My mother has it locked up.  I’ll run.”

“No, Rose; no one but me.  Now, Josephine, do not you go and give way to hopes that may be delusive.  I must see that journal directly.  I will go to the baroness.  I shall excuse her less than you would.”

He was scarcely gone when a cry of horror filled the room, a cry as of madness falling like a thunderbolt on a human mind.  It was Josephine, who up to this had not uttered one word.  But now she stood, white as a corpse, in the middle of the room, and wrung her hands.  “What have I done?  What shall I do?  It was the 3d of May.  I see it before me in letters of fire; the 3d of May! the 3d of May!—­and he writes the 15th.”

“No! no!” cried Camille wildly.  “It was long, long after time 3d.”

“It was the 3d of May,” repeated Josephine in a hoarse voice that none would have known for hers.

Camille ran to her with words of comfort and hope; he did not share her fears.  He remembered about when the Moniteur came, though not the very day.  He threw his arm lovingly round her as if to protect her against these shadowy terrors.  Her dilating eyes seemed fixed on something distant in space or time, at some horrible thing coming slowly towards her.  She did not see Camille approach her, but the moment she felt him she turned upon him swiftly.

“Do you love me?” still in the hoarse voice that had so little in it of Josephine.  “I mean, does one grain of respect or virtue mingle in your love for me?”

“What words are these, my wife?”

“Then leave Raynal’s house upon the instant.  You wonder I can be so cruel?  I wonder too; and that I can see my duty so clear in one short moment.  But I have lived twenty years since that letter came.  Oh! my brain has whirled through a thousand agonies.  And I have come back a thousand times to the same thing; you and I must see each other’s face no more.”

“Oh!” cried Rose, “is there no way but this?”

“Take care,” she screamed, wildly, to her and Camille, “I am on the verge of madness; is it for you two to thrust me over the precipice?  Come, now, if you are a man of honor, if you have a spark of gratitude towards the poor woman who has given you all except her fair name—­that she will take to the grave in spite of you all—­promise that you will leave Raynal’s house this minute if he is alive, and let me die in honor as I have lived.”

“No, no!” cried Camille, terror-stricken; “it cannot be.  Heaven is merciful, and Heaven sees how happy we are.  Be calm! these are idle fears; be calm!  I say.  For if it is so I will obey you.  I will stay; I will go; I will die; I will live; I will obey you.”