“And you,” he said, “you call me so?”

By one great effort the Countess Claudieuse recovered her energy.

“Yes,” she replied, “yes, I do!  You cannot deny your crime to me.  I know, I know the motives which the judges do not even guess.  You thought I would carry out my threats, and you were frightened.  When I left you in such haste, you said to yourself, ’It is all over:  she will tell her husband.’  And then you kindled that fire in order to draw my husband out of the house, you incendiary!  And then you fired at my husband, you murderer!”

He was still laughing.

“And that is your plan?” he broke in.  “Who do you think will believe such an absurd story?  Our letters were burnt; and, if you deny having been my mistress, I can just as well deny having been your lover.  And, besides, would the exposure do me any harm?  You know very well it would not.  You are perfectly aware, that, as society is with us, the same thing which disgraces a woman rather raises a man in the estimate of the world.  And as to my being afraid of Count Claudieuse, it is well known that I am afraid of nobody.  At the time when we were concealing our love in the house in Vine Street, yes, at that time, I might have been afraid of your husband; for he might have surprised us there, the code in one hand, a revolver in the other, and have availed himself of that stupid and savage law which makes the husband the judge of his own case, and the executor of the sentence which he himself pronounces.  But setting aside such a case, the case of being taken in the act, which allows a man to kill like a dog another man, who can not or will not defend himself, what did I care for Count Claudieuse?  What did I care for your threats or for his hatred?” He said these words with perfect calmness, but with that cold, cutting tone which is as sharp as a sword, and with that positiveness which enters irresistibly into the mind.  The countess was tottering, and stammered almost inaudibly,—­

“Who would imagine such a thing?  Is it possible?”

Then, suddenly raising her head, she said,—­

“But I am losing my senses.  If you are innocent, who, then, could be the guilty man?”

Jacques seized her hands almost madly, and pressing them painfully, and bending over her so closely that she felt his hot breath like a flame touching her face, he hissed into her ear,—­

“You, wretched creature, you!”

And then pushing her from him with such violence that she fell into a chair, he continued,—­

“You, who wanted to be a widow in order to prevent me from breaking the chains in which you held me.  At our last meeting, when I thought you were crushed by grief, and felt overcome by your hypocritical tears, I was weak enough, I was stupid enough, to say that I married Dionysia only because you were not free.  Then you cried, ’O God, how happy I am that that idea did not occur to me before!’ What idea was that, Genevieve?  Come, answer me and confess, that it occurred to you too soon after all, since you have carried it out?”