altar of your nuptials, or else--the galleys."

Tremorel's pride at last revolted against so many humiliations, so
many whip-strokes lashing his face.

"You have only forgotten one thing, Sauvresy; that a man can die."

"Pardon me," replied the sick man, coldly. "I have foreseen that
also, and was just going to tell you so. Should one of you die
suddenly before the marriage, the police will be called in."

"You misunderstood me; I meant that a man can kill himself."

"You kill yourself? Humph! Jenny, who disdains you almost as much
as I do, has told me about your threats to kill yourself. You!
See here; here is my revolver; shoot yourself, and I will forgive
my wife!"

Hector made a gesture of anger, but did not take the pistol.

"You see," said Sauvresy, "I knew it well. You are afraid."
Turning to Bertha, he added, "This is your lover."

Extraordinary situations like this are so unwonted and strange
that the actors in them almost always remain composed and natural,
as if stupefied. Bertha, Hector, and Sauvresy accepted, without
taking note of it, the strange position in which they found
themselves; and they talked naturally, as if of matters of
every-day life, and not of terrible events. But the hours flew,
and Sauvresy perceived his life to be ebbing from him.

"There only remains one more act to play," said he. "Hector, go
and call the servants, have those who have gone to bed aroused, I
want to see them before dying."

Tremorel hesitated.

"Come, go along; or shall I ring, or fire a pistol to bring them
here?"

Hector went out; Bertha remained alone with her husband--alone!
She had a hope that perhaps she might succeed in making him change
his purpose, and that she might obtain his forgiveness. She knelt
beside the bed. Never had she been so beautiful, so seductive, so
irresistible. The keen emotions of the evening had brought her
whole soul into her face, and her lovely eyes supplicated, her
breast heaved, her mouth was held out as if for a kiss, and her
new-born passion for Sauvresy burst out into delirium.

"Clement," she stammered, in a voice full of tenderness, "my
husband, Clement!"

He directed toward her a glance of hatred.

"What do you wish?"

She did not know how to begin--she hesitated, trembled and sobbed.

"Hector would not kill himself," said she, "but I--"

"Well, what do you wish to say? Speak!"

"It was I, a wretch, who have killed you. I will not survive you."

An inexp