Madame de Camors suddenly grew very red, and her husband very pale.  The diplomat alone did not change color, for he comprehended nothing.  The young Countess, under pretext of a headache, which her face did not belie, returned home immediately, promising her husband to send back the carriage for him.  Shortly after, the Marquise de Campvallon, obeying a secret sign from M. de Camors, rejoined him in the retired boudoir, which recalled to them both the most culpable incident of their lives.  She sat down beside him on the divan with a haughty nonchalance.

“What is it?” she said.

“Why do you watch me?” asked Camors.  “It is unworthy of you!”

“Ah! an explanation? a disagreeable thing.  It is the first between us—­at least let us be quick and complete.”

She spoke in a voice of restrained passion—­her eyes fixed on her foot, which she twisted in her satin shoe.

“Well, tell the truth,” she said.  “You are in love with your wife.”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “Unworthy of you, I repeat.”

“What, then, mean these delicate attentions to her?”

“You ordered me to marry her, but not to kill her, I suppose?”

She made a strange movement of her eyebrows, which he did not see, for neither of them looked at the other.  After a pause she said: 

“She has her son!  She has her mother!  I have no one but you.  Hear me, my friend; do not make me jealous, for when I am so, ideas torment me which terrify even myself.  Wait an instant.  Since we are on this subject, if you love her, tell me so.  You know me—­you know I am not fond of petty artifices.  Well, I fear so much the sufferings and humiliations of which I have a presentiment, I am so much afraid of myself, that I offer you, and give you, your liberty.  I prefer this horrible grief, for it is at least open and noble!  It is no snare that I set for you, believe me!  Look at me.  I seldom weep.”  The dark blue of her eyes was bathed in tears.  “Yes, I am sincere; and I beg of you, if it is so, profit by this moment, for if you let it escape, you never will find it again.”

M. de Camors was little prepared for this decided proposal.  The idea of breaking off his liaison with the Marquise never had entered his mind.  This liaison seemed to him very reconcilable with the sentiments with which his wife could inspire him.

It was at the same time the greatest wickedness and the perpetual danger of his life, but it was also the excitement, the pride, and the magnificent voluptuousness of it.  He shuddered.  The idea of losing the love which had cost him so dear exasperated him.  He cast a burning glance on this beautiful face, refined and exalted as that of a warring archangel.

“My life is yours,” he said.  “How could you have dreamed of breaking ties like ours?  How could you have alarmed yourself, or even thought of my feelings toward another?  I do what honor and humanity command me—­nothing more.  As for you—­I love you—­understand that.”