“But if you two should love each other, even while respecting my honor:  if you love each other and confess it—­if you two, even at my side, in my heart—­if you, my two children, should be calculating with impatient eyes the progress of my old age—­planning your projects for the future, and smiling at my approaching death—­postponing your happiness only for my tomb you may think yourselves guiltless, but no, I tell you it would be shameful!”

Under the empire of the passion which controlled him, the voice of the General became louder.  His common features assumed an air of sombre dignity and imposing grandeur.  A slight shade of paleness passed over the lovely face of the young woman and a slight frown contracted her forehead.

By an effort, which in a better cause would have been sublime, she quickly mastered her weakness, and, coldly pointing out to her husband the draped door by which he had entered, said: 

“Very well, conceal yourself there!”

“You will never forgive me?”

“You know little of women, my friend, if you do not know that jealousy is one of the crimes they not only pardon but love.”

“My God, I am not jealous!”

“Call it yourself what you will, but station yourself there!”

“And you are sincere in wishing me to do so?”

“I pray you to do so!  Retire in the interval, leave the door open, and when you hear Monsieur de Camors enter the court of the hotel, return.”

“No!” said the General, after a moment’s hesitation; “since I have gone so far”—­and he sighed deeply “I do not wish to leave myself the least pretext for distrust.  If I leave you before he comes, I am capable of fancying—­”

“That I might secretly warn him?  Nothing more natural.  Remain here, then.  Only take a book; for our conversation, under such circumstances, can not be lively.”

He sat down.

“But,” he said, “what mystery can there be between you two?”

“You shall hear!” she said, with her sphinx-like smile.

The General mechanically took up a book.  She stirred the fire, and reflected.  As she liked terror, danger, and dramatic incidents to blend with her intrigues, she should have been content; for at that moment shame, ruin, and death were at her door.  But, to tell the truth, it was too much for her; and when she looked, in the midst of the silence which surrounded her, at the true character and scope of the perils which surrounded her, she thought her brain would fail and her heart break.

She was not mistaken as to the origin of the letter.  This shameful work had indeed been planned by Madame de la Roche-Jugan.  To do her justice, she had not suspected the force of the blow she was dealing.  She still believed in the virtue of the Marquise; but during the perpetual surveillance she had never relaxed, she could not fail to see the changed nature of the intercourse between Camors and the Marquise.