ions of her who was mistress and queen of all. He saw her proud
and supple step--he heard her grave and musical voice--he felt her
breath.

This young man had exhausted everything. Love and pleasure had no longer
for him secrets or temptations; but his imagination, cold and blase, had
arisen all inflamed before this beautiful, living, palpitating statue.
She was really for him more than a woman--more than a mortal. The
antique fables of amorous goddesses and drunken Bacchantes--the
superhuman voluptuousness unknown in terrestrial pleasures--were
in reach of his hand, separated from him only by the shadow of this
sleeping old man. But a shadow was ever between them--it was honor.

His eyes, as if lost in thought, were fixed straight before him on the
curtain opposite the chimney. Suddenly this curtain was noiselessly
raised, and the young Marquise appeared, her brow surmounted by her
coronet. She threw a rapid glance over the boudoir, and after a moment's
pause, let the curtain fall gently, and advanced directly toward Camors,
who stood dazzled and immovable. She took both his hands, without
speaking, looked at his steadily--throwing a rapid glance at her
husband, who still slept--and, standing on tiptoe, offered her lips to
the young man.

Bewildered, and forgetting all else, he bent, and imprinted a kiss on
her lips.

At that very moment, the General made a sudden movement and woke up; but
the same instant the Marquise was standing before him, her hands resting
on the card-table; and smiling upon him, she said, "Good-morning, my
General!"

The General murmured a few words of apology, but she laughingly pushed
him back on his divan.

"Continue your nap," she said; "I have come in search of my cousin, for
the last cotillon." The General obeyed.

She passed out by the gallery. The young man; pale as a spectre,
followed her.

Passing under the curtain, she turned toward him with a wild light
burning in her eyes. Then, before she was lost in the throng, she
whispered, in a low, thrilling voice:

"There is the crime!"

CHAPTER XIII. THE FIRST ACT OF THE TRAGEDY

Camors did not attempt to rejoin the Marquise, and it seemed to him
that she also avoided him. A quarter of an hour later, he left the Hotel
Campvallon.

He returned immediately home. A lamp was burning in his chamber. When
he saw himself in the mirror, his own face terrified him. This exciting
scene had shaken his nerves.

He could no longer