Though greatly pressed for time, M. Daburon did not venture to interrupt the count, to ask him briefly for the immediate facts of the case.  He knew that fever alone gave him this unnatural energy, to which at any moment might succeed the most complete prostration.  He feared, if he stopped him for an instant, that he would not have strength enough to resume.

“I did not shed a single tear,” continued the count.  “What had she been in my life?  A cause of sorrow and remorse.  But God’s justice, in advance of man’s was about to take a terrible revenge.  One day, I was warned that Valerie was deceiving me, and had done so for a long time.  I could not believe it at first; it seemed to me impossible, absurd.  I would have sooner doubted myself than her.  I had taken her from a garret, where she was working sixteen hours a day to earn a few pence; she owed all to me.  I had made her so much a part of myself that I could not credit her being false.  I could not induce myself to feel jealous.  However, I inquired into the matter; I had her watched; I even acted the spy upon her myself.  I had been told the truth.  This unhappy woman had another lover, and had had him for more than ten years.  He was a cavalry officer.  In coming to her house he took every precaution.  He usually left about midnight; but sometimes he came to pass the night, and in that case went away in the early morning.  Being stationed near Paris, he frequently obtained leave of absence and came to visit her; and he would remain shut up in her apartments until his time expired.  One evening, my spies brought me word that he was there.  I hastened to the house.  My presence did not embarrass her.  She received me as usual, throwing her arms about my neck.  I thought that my spies had deceived me; and I was going to tell her all, when I saw upon the piano a buckskin glove, such as are worn by soldiers.  Not wishing a scene, and not knowing to what excess my anger might carry me, I rushed out of the place without saying a word.  I have never seen her since.  She wrote to me.  I did not open her letters.  She attempted to force her way into my presence, but in vain; my servants had orders that they dared not ignore.”

Could this be the Count de Commarin, celebrated for his haughty coldness, for his reserve so full of disdain, who spoke thus, who opened his whole life without restrictions, without reserve?  And to whom?  To a stranger.

But he was in one of those desperate states, allied to madness, when all reflection leaves us, when we must find some outlet for a too powerful emotion.  What mattered to him this secret, so courageously borne for so many years?  He disburdened himself of it, like the poor man, who, weighed down by a too heavy burden, casts it to the earth without caring where it falls, nor how much it may tempt the cupidity of the passers-by.