u don't mean that you...."

"Why not? He has come between us. What could be more natural than that I
should tell him so?"

A look of dismay came over her face, and it was followed by an
expression of terror.

"But you wouldn't do that," she stammered. "You couldn't do it. It is
impossible. You are only trying me."

His face remained perfectly passive, and she seized him by the arm.

"Think! Only think! You would do no good for yourself. You might stop
the marriage--yes! But you wouldn't carry out your political purpose.
You couldn't! And while you would do no good for yourself, think of the
harm you would do for me. He loves me, and you would hurt his beautiful
faith in me, and I should die of grief and shame."

"You are cruel, my child," said the Baron, speaking with dignity. "You
think _I_ am hard and unrelenting, but _you_ are selfish and cruel. You
are so concerned about your own feelings that you don't even suspect
that perhaps you are wounding mine."

"Ah, yes, it is too bad," she said, dropping to her knees at his feet.
"After all, you have been very good to me thus far, and it was partly my
own fault if matters ended as they did. Yes, I confess it. I was vain
and proud. I wanted all the world. And when you gave me everything,
being so tied yourself, I thought I might forgive you.... But I was
wrong--I was to blame--nothing in the world could excuse you--I saw that
the moment afterwards. I really hadn't thought at all until then--but
then my soul awoke. And then...."

She turned her head aside that he might not see her face.

"And then love came, and I was like a woman who had married a man thirty
years older than herself--married without love--just for the sake of her
pride and vanity. But love, real love, drove all that away. It is gone
now; I only wish to lead a good life, however simple and humble it may
be. Let me do so!... Do not take him away from me! Do not...."

She stammered and stopped, with a sudden consciousness of what she was
doing.

"What a fool I am!" she said, leaping to her feet. "What fresh story can
you tell him that he is likely to believe?"

"I can tell him that, according to the law of nature and of reason, you
belong to me," said the Baron.

"Very well! It will be your word against mine, will it not? Tell him,
and he will fling your insult in your face."

The Baron rose and began to walk about the room, and there were some
moments in which nothing could be heard but the s