o avert that horror. But mercifully God spared me the
necessity then."

It had not occurred to any of them to doubt her statement, incredible
though it might seem. Had any done so her present words must have
resolved all doubt, explaining as they did much that to each of her
listeners had been obscure until this moment.

M. de La Tour d'Azyr, overcome, reeled away to a chair and sat down
heavily. Losing command of himself for a moment, he took his haggard
face in his hands.

Through the windows open to the garden came from the distance the faint
throbbing of a drum to remind them of what was happening around them.
But the sound went unheeded. To each it must have seemed that here
they were face to face with a horror greater than any that might be
tormenting Paris. At last Andre-Louis began to speak, his voice level
and unutterably cold.

"M. de La Tour d'Azyr," he said, "I trust that you'll agree that this
disclosure, which can hardly be more distasteful and horrible to you
than it is to me, alters nothing, since it effaces nothing of all
that lies between us. Or, if it alters anything, it is merely to add
something to that score. And yet... Oh, but what can it avail to talk!
Here, monsieur, take this safe-conduct which is made out for Mme. de
Plougastel's footman, and with it make your escape as best you can. In
return I will beg of you the favour never to allow me to see you or hear
of you again."

"Andre!" His mother swung upon him with that cry. And yet again that
question. "Have you no heart? What has he ever done to you that you
should nurse so bitter a hatred of him?"

"You shall hear, madame. Once, two years ago in this very room I told
you of a man who had brutally killed my dearest friend and debauched the
girl I was to have married. M. de La Tour d'Azyr is that man."

A moan was her only answer. She covered her face with her hands.

The Marquis rose slowly to his feet again. He came slowly forward, his
smouldering eyes scanning his son's face.

"You are hard," he said grimly. "But I recognize the hardness. It
derives from the blood you bear."

"Spare me that," said Andre-Louis.

The Marquis inclined his head. "I will not mention it again. But I
desire that you should at least understand me, and you too, Therese. You
accuse me, sir, of murdering your dearest friend. I will admit that the
means employed were perhaps unworthy. But what other means were at my
command to meet an urgency that every da