Camors roughly repelled her, sprang up, and stood before her.

“Charlotte,” he said, sternly, “this is only a trial, I hope; but, trial or no, never repeat it—­never!  Remember!”

She also quickly drew herself up.

“Ah! how you love her!” she cried.  “Yes, you love her, it is she you love-I know it, I feel it, and I-I am only the wretched object of your pity, or of your caprice.  Very well, go back to her—­go and protect her, for I swear to you she is in peril!”

He smiled with his haughty irony.

“Let us see your plot,” he said.  “So you intend to kill her?”

“If I can!” she said; and her superb arm was stretched out as if to seize a weapon.

“What! with your own hand?”

“The hand shall be found.”

“You are so beautiful at this moment!” said Camors; “I am dying with the desire to fall at your feet.  Acknowledge only that you wished to try me, or that you were mad for a moment.”

She gave a savage smile.

“Oh! you fear, my friend,” she said, coldly; then raising again her voice, which assumed a malignant tone, “You are right, I am not mad, I did not wish to try you; I am jealous, I am betrayed, and I shall revenge myself—­no matter what it costs me—­for I care for nothing more in this world!—­Go, and guard her!”

“Be it so; I go,” said Camors.  He immediately left the salon and the chateau; he reached the railway station on foot, and that evening arrived at Reuilly.

Something terrible there awaited him.

During his absence, Madame de Camors, accompanied by her mother, had gone to Paris to make some purchases.  She remained there three days.  She had returned only that morning.  He himself arrived late in the evening.  He thought he observed some constraint in their reception of him, but he did not dwell upon it in the state of mind in which he was.

This is what had occurred:  Madame de Camors, during her stay in Paris, had gone, as was her custom, to visit her aunt, Madame de la Roche-Jugan.  Their intercourse had always been very constrained.  Neither their characters nor their religion coincided.  Madame de Camors contented herself with not liking her aunt, but Madame de la Roche-Jugan hated her niece.  She found a good occasion to prove this, and did not lose it.  They had not seen each other since the General’s death.  This event, which should have caused Madame de la Roche-Jugan to reproach herself, had simply exasperated her.  Her bad action had recoiled upon herself.  The death of M. Campvallon had finally destroyed her last hopes, which she had believed she could have founded on the anger and desperation of the old man.  Since that time she was animated against her nephew and the Marquise with the rage of one of the Furies.  She learned through Vautrot that M. de Camors had been in the chamber of Madame de Campvallon the night of the General’s death.  On this foundation of truth she did not fear to frame the most odious suspicions; and Vautrot, baffled like her in his vengeance and in his envy, had aided her.  A few sinister rumors, escaping apparently from this source, had even crept at this time into Parisian society.