“But have I a right to complain?  I reap as I have sown.  Alas!  Thorn has told me so often enough, and I would not believe him.  I was not twenty years old when I came to Paris, after my poor father’s death.  I had been brought up in America, where young girls know no other law but that of their own consciences.  They tell us at home, all the time, that it is our first duty to be truthful.  In France, young girls are taught that hypocrisy is their first duty.  We are taught not to blush, except when we have done wrong; they are taught all the appearances of false prudishness.  In France, they work hard to save appearances; with us, we aim at reality.  In Philadelphia, I did every thing I chose to do, provided I did not think it was wrong.  I thought I could do the same here.  Poor me!  I did not count upon the wickedness of the world.  I went out alone, on horseback, in the morning.  I went alone to church, to pray to God.  If I wanted any thing for my toilet, I sent for the carriage, and drove out, alone, to buy it.  When a man spoke to me, I did not feel bound to cast down my eyes; and, if he was amusing and witty, I laughed.  If a new fashion pleased me, I adopted it.  I committed all these crimes.  I was young, rich, popular.  These were as many more crimes.  And after I had been here a year, they said that Malgat, that wretch”—­

She jumped up as she said this, ran up to Daniel, and, seizing him by the hands, she said,—­

“Malgat!  Have they talked to you about Malgat?”

And, as he hesitated to answer, she added:—­

“Ah, answer me!  Don’t you see that your hesitation is an insult?”

“Well—­yes.”

As if in utter despair, she raised her hands to heaven, calling God, as it were, to witness, and asking for inspiration from on high.  Then she added suddenly,—­

“But I have proofs, irrefutable proofs of Malgat’s rascality.”

And, without waiting for another word, she hurried into the adjoining room.  Daniel, moved to the bottom of his heart, remained standing where he was, immovable, like a statue.

He was utterly confounded and overcome by the charm of that marvellous voice, which passed through the whole gamut of passion with such a sonorous ring, and yet with such sweet languor, that it seemed by turns to sob and to threaten, to sigh with sadness and to thunder with wrath.

“What a woman!” he said to himself, repeating thus unconsciously the words uttered by M. de Brevan.

“What a woman!  And how well she defends herself.”

But Miss Brandon was already back again, carrying in her arms a small box of costly wood inlaid with jewels.  She resumed her seat on the sofa; and in that brief, sharp tone which betrays terrible passions restrained with a great effort, she said,—­

“Before all, I must thank you, M. Champcey, for your frankness, since it enables me to defend myself.  I knew that slander had attacked me; I felt it, so to say, in the air I was breathing; but I had never been able yet to take hold of it.  Now, for the first time, I can face it; and I owe it to you that I am able to defy it.  Listen, therefore; for I swear to you by all that is most sacred to me, by the memory of my sainted mother, I swear to you solemnly, that you shall hear the truth, and nothing but the truth.”