“Michel!”

“The most cowardly, the vilest being in the world!  If he hated me, he might have killed me; he might have torn off my veil just now, and struck me across the lips.  But to do this, to do this!  To attack you, you, you!  Ah! miserable dog; fit only to be stoned to death!  Judas!  Liar and coward!  Would to heaven I had planted a knife in his heart!”

“Ah!  My God!” murmured the Prince, as if stabbed himself.

At this cry of bitter agony from Andras Zilah, Marsa’s imprecations ceased; and she threw herself madly at his feet; while he stood erect and pale—­her judge.

She lay there, a mass of white satin and lace, her loosened hair falling upon the carpet, where the pale bridal flowers withered beneath her husband’s heel; and Zilah, motionless, his glance wandering from the prostrate woman to the package of letters which burned his fingers, seemed ready to strike, with these proofs of her infamy, the distracted Tzigana, a wolf to threaten, a slave to supplicate.

Suddenly he leaned over, seized her by the wrists, and raised her almost roughly.

“Do you know,” he said, in low, quivering tones, “that the lowest of women is less culpable than you?  Ten times, a hundred times, less culpable!  Do you know that I have the right to kill you?”

“Ah! that, yes!  Do it! do it! do it!” she cried, with the smile of a mad woman.

He pushed her slowly from him.

“Why have you committed this infamy?  It was not for my fortune; you are rich.”

Marsa moaned, humiliated to the dust by this cold contempt.  She would have preferred brutal anger; anything, to this.

“Ah! your fortune!” she said, finding a last excuse for herself out of the depth of her humiliation, which had now become eternal; “it was not that, nor your name, nor your title that I wished:  it was your love!”

The heart of the Prince seemed wrung in a vise as this word fell from those lips, once adored, nay, still adored, soiled as they were.

“My love!”

“Yes, your love, your love alone!  I would have confessed all, been your mistress, your slave, your thing, if I—­I had not feared to lose you, to see myself abased in the eyes of you, whom I adored!  I was afraid, afraid of seeing you fly from me—­yes, that was my crime!  It is infamous, ah!  I know it; but I thought only of keeping you, you alone; you, my admiration, my hero, my life, my god!  I deserve to be punished; yes, yes, I deserve it—­But those letters—­those letters which you would have cast into the fire if I had not revealed the secret of my life—­you told me so yourself—­I might have sworn what you asked, and you would have believed me—­I might have done so; but no, it would have been too vile, too cowardly!  Ah! kill me!  That is what I deserve, that is what—­”

“Where are you going?” she cried, interrupting herself, her eyes dilated with fear, as she saw that Zilah, without answering, was moving toward the door.