Madame Steno, in those letters she had written with all the familiarity and all the liberty of passion, never called Lydia anything but La Morettina, and by a very strange illogicalness never was the name of the brother of La Morettina mentioned without a formula of friendship.  As the mistress treated Florent in that manner, it must be that she apprehended no hostility on the part of her lover’s brother-in-law.  Lydia understood it only too well, as well as the fresh proof of Florent’s sentiments for Lincoln.  Once more he gave precedence to the friend over the sister, and on what an occasion!  The most secret wounds in her inmost being bled as she read.  The success of Alba’s portrait, which promised to be a masterpiece, ended by precipitating her into a fierce and abominable action.  She resolved to denounce Madame Steno’s new love to the betrayed lover, and she wrote the twelve letters, wisely calculated and graduated, which had indeed determined Gorka’s return.  His return had even been delayed too long to suit the relative of Iago, who had decided to aim at Madame Steno through Alba by a still more criminal denunciation.  Lydia was in that state of exasperation in which the vilest weapons seem the best, and she included innocent Alba in her hatred for Maitland, on account of the portrait, a turn of sentiment which will show that it was envy by which that soul was poisoned above all.  Ah, what bitter delight the simultaneous success of that double infamy had procured for her!  What savage joy, mingled with bitterness and ecstacy, had been hers the day before, on witnessing the nervousness of poor Alba and the suppressed fury of Boleslas!

In her mind she had seen Maitland provoked by the rival whom she knew to be as adroit with the sword as with the pistol.  She would not have been the great-grandchild of a slave of Louisiana, if she had not combined with the natural energy of her hatreds a considerable amount of superstition.  A fortune-teller had once foretold, from the lines in her palm, that she would cause the violent death of some person.  “It will be he,” she had thought, glancing at her husband with a horrible tremor of hope....  And now she had the proof, the indisputable proof, that her plot for vengeance was to terminate in the danger of another.  Of what other?

The letter and will made by Florent disclosed to her the threat of a fatal duel suspended over the head which was the dearest to her.  So she had driven to a tragical encounter the only being whom she loved....  The disappointment of the heart in which palpitated the wild energies of a bestial atavism was so sudden, so acute, so dolorous, that she uttered an inarticulate cry, leaning upon her brother’s desk, and, in the face of those sheets of paper which had revealed so much, she repeated: 

“He is going to fight a duel!  He!....  And I am the cause!"....  Then, returning the letters and the will to the drawer, she closed it and rose, saying aloud: