se, it is well known
that I am afraid of nobody. At the time when we were concealing our love
in the house in Vine Street, yes, at that time, I might have been afraid
of your husband; for he might have surprised us there, the code in one
hand, a revolver in the other, and have availed himself of that stupid
and savage law which makes the husband the judge of his own case, and
the executor of the sentence which he himself pronounces. But setting
aside such a case, the case of being taken in the act, which allows
a man to kill like a dog another man, who can not or will not defend
himself, what did I care for Count Claudieuse? What did I care for your
threats or for his hatred?" He said these words with perfect calmness,
but with that cold, cutting tone which is as sharp as a sword, and with
that positiveness which enters irresistibly into the mind. The countess
was tottering, and stammered almost inaudibly,--

"Who would imagine such a thing? Is it possible?"

Then, suddenly raising her head, she said,--

"But I am losing my senses. If you are innocent, who, then, could be the
guilty man?"

Jacques seized her hands almost madly, and pressing them painfully, and
bending over her so closely that she felt his hot breath like a flame
touching her face, he hissed into her ear,--

"You, wretched creature, you!"

And then pushing her from him with such violence that she fell into a
chair, he continued,--

"You, who wanted to be a widow in order to prevent me from breaking the
chains in which you held me. At our last meeting, when I thought you
were crushed by grief, and felt overcome by your hypocritical tears,
I was weak enough, I was stupid enough, to say that I married Dionysia
only because you were not free. Then you cried, 'O God, how happy I
am that that idea did not occur to me before!' What idea was that,
Genevieve? Come, answer me and confess, that it occurred to you too soon
after all, since you have carried it out?"

And repeating with crushing irony the words just uttered by the
countess, he said,--

"If you are innocent, who, then, would be the guilty man?"

Quite beside herself, she sprang up from her chair, and casting at
Jacques one of those glances which seem to enter through our eyes into
the very heart of our hearts, she asked,--

"Is it really possible that you have not committed this abominable
crime?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"But then," she repeated, almost panting, "is it true, can i