d out to
snatch the blue vial.

"I guessed it and recognized it at the very first; for you have
chosen one of those poisons which, it is true, leave scarcely any
trace of themselves, but the symptoms of which are not deceptive.
Do you remember the day when I complained of a morbid taste for
pepper? The next day I was certain of it, and I was not the only
one. Doctor R---, too, had a suspicion."

Bertha tried to stammer something; her husband interrupted her.

"People ought to try their poisons," pursued he, in an ironical
tone, "before they use them. Didn't you understand yours, or what
its effects were? Why, your poison gives intolerable neuralgia,
sleeplessness, and you saw me without surprise, sleeping soundly
all night long! I complained of a devouring fire within me, while
your poison freezes the blood and the entrails, and yet you are not
astonished. You see all the symptoms change and disappear, and
that does not enlighten you. You are fools, then. Now see what
I had to do to divert Doctor R---'s suspicions. I hid the real pains
which your poison caused, and complained of imaginary, ridiculous
ones. I described sensations just the opposite of those which I
felt. You were lost, then--and I saved you."

Bertha's malignant energy staggered beneath so many successive blows.
She wondered whether she were not going mad; had she heard aright?
Was it really true that her husband had perceived that he was being
poisoned, and yet said nothing; nay, that he had even deceived the
doctor? Why? What was his purpose?

Sauvresy paused several minutes, and then went on:

"I have held my tongue and so saved you, because the sacrifice of
my life had already been made. Yes, I had been fatally wounded in
the heart on the day that I learned that you were faithless to me."

He spoke of his death without apparent emotion; but at the words,
"You were faithless to me," his voice faltered and trembled.

"I would not, could not believe it at first. I doubted the evidence
of my senses, rather than doubt you. But I was forced to believe at
last. I was no longer anything in my house but a laughing-stock.
But I was in your way. You and your lover needed more room and
liberty. You were tired of constraint and hypocrisy. Then it was
that, believing that my death would make you free and rich, you
brought in poison to rid yourselves of me."

Bertha had at least the heroism of crime. All was discovered; well,
she threw down the mask. She