nce so long? How could you have allowed me
to contract that hateful marriage?"

She seemed more confident, and her voice grew gentler. "Monsieur, it
is because Madame, before she went to God, made me take oath on the
crucifix to keep that secret for ever."

"Yet not with me, in fact,--not with me!" And I, in turn, questioned
her; my eyes upon hers. She hesitated: then stammered out, "True! not
with you! because she believed, poor little soul! that..."

"What did she believe? That I knew it? That I was an accomplice? Tell
me!" Her eyes fell, and she made no answer. "Is it possible, my God,
is it possible? But come, sit by me here, and tell me all you know,
all you saw. At what time was it you noticed anything--the precise
moment?" For in truth she had been suffering for a long time past.

Victoire tells the miserable story of Sabine's [238] crime--we must
pardon what we think a not quite worthy addition to the imaginary world
M. Feuillet has called up round about him, for the sake of fully
knowing Bernard and Aliette. The old nurse had surprised her in the
very act, and did not credit her explanation. "When I surprised her,"
she goes on:

"It may already have been too late--be sure it was not the first time
she had been guilty--my first thought was to give you information. But
I had not the courage. Then I told Madame. I thought I saw plainly
that I had nothing to tell she was not already aware of. Nevertheless
she chided me almost harshly. 'You know very well,' she said, 'that my
husband is always there when Mademoiselle prepares the medicines. So
that he too would be guilty. Rather than believe that, I would accept
death at his hands a hundred times over!' And I remember, Monsieur,
how at the very moment when she told me that, you came out from the
little boudoir, and brought her a glass of valerian. She cast on me a
terrible look and drank. A few minutes afterwards she was so ill that
she thought the end was come. She begged me to give her her crucifix,
and made me swear never to utter a word concerning our suspicions. It
was then I sent for the priest. I have told you, Monsieur, what I
know; what I have seen with my own eyes. I swear that I have said
nothing but what is absolutely true." She paused. I could not answer
her. I seized her old wrinkled and trembling hands and pressed them to
my forehead, and wept like a child.

May 10.--She died believing me guilty! The thought is terrib