Denise Tascheron, unconscious. That sight seemed for an
instant to quench the fire in Veronique's eyes; she was evidently
uneasy; but soon her self-control and serenity of martyrdom resumed
their sway.

"You now know," she continued, "that I deserve neither praise or
blessing for my conduct here. I have led in sight of Heaven, a secret
life of bitter penance which Heaven will estimate. My life before men
has been an immense reparation for the evils I have caused; I have
marked my repentance ineffaceably on the earth; it will last almost
eternally here below. It is written on those fertile fields, in the
prosperous village, in the rivulets brought from the mountains to water
the plain once barren and fruitless, now green and fertile. Not a tree
will be cut for a hundred years to come but the people of this region
will know of the remorse that made it grow. My repentant soul will still
live here among you. What you will owe to its efforts, to a fortune
honorably acquired, is the heritage of its repentance,--the repentance
of her who caused the crime. All has been repaired so far as society
is concerned; but I am still responsible for that life, crushed in its
bud,--a life confided to me and for which I am now required to render an
account."

The flame of her eyes was veiled in tears.

"There is here, before me, a man," she continued, "who, because he did
his duty strictly, has been to me an object of hatred which I thought
eternal. He was the first inflictor of my punishment. My feet were still
too deep in blood, I was too near the deed, not to hate justice. So
long as that root of anger lay in my heart, I knew there was still a
lingering remnant of condemnable passion. I had nothing to forgive
that man, I have only had to purify that corner of my heart where Evil
lurked. However hard it may have been to win that victory, it is won."

Monsieur de Grandville turned a face to Veronique that was bathed in
tears. Human justice seemed at that moment to feel remorse. When
the confessing woman raised her head as if to continue, she met the
agonizing look of old man Grossetete, who stretched his supplicating
hands to her as if to say, "Enough, enough!" At the same instant a sound
of tears and sobs was heard. Moved by such sympathy, unable to bear the
balm of this general pardon, she was seized with faintness. Seeing that
her daughter's vital force was gone at last, the old mother summoned the
vigor of her youth to carry her a