nd reflect," added he, "that this package once delivered up to
justice, means the galleys, if not the scaffold for both of you."

Sauvresy had overtasked his strength. He fell panting upon the
bed, his mouth open, his eyes filmy, and his features so distorted
that he seemed to be on the point of death. But neither Bertha
nor Tremorel thought of trying to relieve him. They remained
opposite each other with dilated eyes, stupefied, as if their
thoughts were bent upon the torments of that future which the
implacable vengeance of the man whom they had outraged imposed
upon them. They were indissolubly united, confounded in a common
destiny; nothing could separate them but death. A chain stronger
and harder than that of the galley-slave bound them together; a
chain of infamies and crimes, of which the first link was a kiss,
and the last a murder by poison. Now Sauvresy might die; his
vengeance was on their heads, casting a cloud upon their sun. Free
in appearance, they would go through life crushed by the burden of
the past, more slaves than the blacks in the American rice-fields.
Separated by mutual hate and contempt, they saw themselves riveted
together by the common terror of punishment, condemned to an
eternal embrace.

Bertha at this moment admired her husband. Now that he was so
feeble that he breathed as painfully as an infant, she looked upon
him as something superhuman. She had had no idea of such
constancy and courage allied with so much dissimulation and genius.
How cunningly he had found them out! How well he had known how to
avenge himself! To be the master, he had only to will it. In a
certain way she rejoiced in the strange atrocity of this scene; she
felt something like a bitter pride in being one of the actors in it.
At the same time she was transported with rage and sorrow in
thinking that she had had this man in her power, that he had been
at her feet. She almost loved him. Of all men, it was he whom she
would have chosen were she mistress of her destinies; and he was
going to escape her.

Tremorel, while these strange ideas crowded upon Bertha's mind,
began to come to himself. The certainty that Laurence was now
forever lost for him occurred to him, and his despair was without
bounds. The silence continued a full quarter of an hour. Sauvresy
at last subdued the spasm which had exhausted him, and spoke.

"I have not said all yet," he commenced.

His voice was as feeble as a murmur, and yet it seemed