men are, what women will do, the one and all
alike simpering simulacra that men find them to be, soulless, clogs on
us, bloodsuckers! until a feature of the particular sinner peeped out on
him, and brought the fresh agony of a reminder of his great-heartedness.
'For that woman--Tresten, you know me--I would have sacrificed for that
woman fortune and life, my hope, my duty, my immortality. She knew it,
and she--look!' he unwrinkled the letter carefully for it to be legible,
and clenched it in a ball.' Signs her name, signs her name, her
name!--God of heaven! it would be incredible in a holy chronicle--signs
her name to the infamous harlotry! See: "Clotilde von Rudiger." It's her
writing; that's her signature: "Clotilde" in full. You'd hardly fancy
that, now? But look!' the colonel's eyelids were blinking, and Alvan
dinted his finger-nail under her name: 'there it is: Clotilde: signed
shamelessly. Just as she might have written to one of her friends about
bonnets, and balls, and books! Henceforward strangers, she and I?'

His laughter, even to Tresten, a man of camps, sounded profane as a yell
beneath a cathedral dome. 'Why, the woman has been in my hands--I
released her, spared her, drilled brain and blood, ransacked all the
code, to do her homage and honour in every mortal way; and we two
strangers! Do you hear that, Tresten? Why, if you had seen her!--she was
lost, and I, this man she now pierces with ice, kept hell down under bolt
and bar-worse, I believe, broke a good woman's heart! that never a breath
should rise that could accuse her on suspicion, or in malice, or by
accident, justly, or with a shadow of truth. "I think it best for us
both." So she thinks for me! She not only decides, she thinks; she is the
active principle; 'tis mine to submit.--A certain presumption was in that
girl always. Ha! do you hear me? Her letter may sting, it shall not dupe.
Strangers? Poor fool! You see plainly she was nailed down to write the
thing. This letter is a flat lie. She can lie--Oh! born to the art! born
to it!--lies like a Saint tricking Satan! But she says she has left the
city. Now to find her!'

He began marching about the room with great strides. 'I 'll have the
whole Continent up; her keepers shall have no rest; I 'll have them by
the Law Courts; and by stratagem, and, if law and cunning fail, force. I
have sworn it. I have done all that honour can ask of a man; more than
any man, to my knowledge, would have done, and n