The servants of Mdlle. de Cardoville, accustomed to Djalma’s daily visits, no longer announced his arrival, and admitted him without difficulty, having received no orders to the contrary from their mistress.  He had never before entered the bed-chamber, but, knowing that the apartment the lady occupied was on the first floor of the house, he had easily found it.  As he entered that virgin sanctuary, his countenance was pretty calm, so well did he control his feelings, only a slight paleness tarnished the brilliant amber of his complexion.  He wore that day a robe of purple cashmere, striped with silver—­a color which did not show the stains of blood upon it.  Djalma closed the door after him, and tore off his white turban, for it seemed to him as if a band of hot iron encircled his brow.  His dark hair streamed around his handsome face.  He crossed his arms upon his bosom, and looked slowly about him.  When his eyes rested on Adrienne’s bed, he started suddenly, and his cheek grew purple.  Then he drew his hand across his brow, hung down his head, and remained standing for some moments in a dream, motionless as a statue.

After a mournful silence of a few seconds’ duration, Djalma fell upon his knees, and raised his eyes to heaven.  The Asiatic’s countenance was bathed in tears, and no longer expressed any violent passion.  On his features was no longer the stamp of hate, or despair, or the ferocious joy of vengeance gratified.  It was rather the expression of grief at once simple and immense.  For several minutes he was almost choked with sobs, and tears ran freely down his cheeks.

“Dead! dead!” he murmured, in a half-stifled voice.  “She, who this morning slept so peacefully in this chamber!  And I have killed her.  Now that she is dead, what is her treachery to me?  I should not have killed her for that.  She had betrayed me; she loved the man whom I slew—­she loved him!  Alas!  I could not hope to gain the preference,” added he, with a touching mixture of resignation and remorse; “I, poor, untaught youth—­how could I merit her love?  It was my fault that she did not love me; but, always generous, she concealed from me her indifference, that she might not make me too unhappy—­and for that I killed her.  What was her crime?  Did she not meet me freely?  Did she not open to me her dwelling?  Did she not allow me to pass whole days with her?  No doubt she tried to love me, and could not.  I loved her with all the faculties of my soul, but my love was not such as she required.  For that, I should not have killed her.  But a fatal delusion seized me and, after it was done, I woke as from a dream.  Alas! it was not a dream:  I have killed her.  And yet—­until this evening—­what happiness I owed to her—­what hope—­what joy!  She made my heart better, nobler, more generous.  All came from her,” added the Indian, with a new burst of grief.  “That remained with me—­no one could take from me that treasure of the past—­that ought to have consoled me.  But why think of it?  I struck them both—­her and the man—­without a struggle.  It was a cowardly murder—­the ferocity of the tiger that tears its innocent prey!”