t really be
true, that you think I have committed it?"

"Perhaps you have only ordered it to be committed."

With a wild gesture she raised her arms to heaven, and cried in a
heart-rending voice,--

"O God, O God! He believes it! he really believes it!"

There followed great silence, dismal, formidable silence, such as in
nature follows the crash of the thunderbolt.

Standing face to face, Jacques and the Countess Claudieuse looked at
each other madly, feeling that the fatal hour in their lives had come at
last.

Each felt a growing, a sure conviction of the other. There was no need
of explanations. They had been misled by appearances: they acknowledged
it; they were sure of it.

And this discovery was so fearful, so overwhelming, that neither thought
of who the real guilty one might be.

"What is to be done?" asked the countess.

"The truth must be told," replied Jacques.

"Which?"

"That I have been your lover; that I went to Valpinson by appointment
with you; that the cartridge-case which was found there was used by
me to get fire; that my blackened hands were soiled by the half-burnt
fragment of our letters, which I had tried to scatter."

"Never!" cried the countess.

Jacques's face turned crimson, as he said with an accent of merciless
severity,--

"It shall be told! I will have it so, and it must be done!"

The countess seemed to be furious.

"Never!" she cried again, "never!"

And with convulsive haste she added,--

"Do you not see that the truth cannot possibly be told. They would never
believe in our innocence. They would only look upon us as accomplices."

"Never mind. I am not willing to die."

"Say that you will not die alone."

"Be it so."

"To confess every thing would never save you, but would most assuredly
ruin me. Is that what you want? Would your fate appear less cruel to
you, if there were two victims instead of one?"

He stopped her by a threatening gesture, and cried,--

"Are you always the same? I am sinking, I am drowning; and she
calculates, she bargains! And she said she loved me!"

"Jacques!" broke in the countess.

And drawing close up to him, she said,--

"Ah! I calculate, I bargain? Well, listen. Yes, it is true. I did value
my reputation as an honest woman more highly, a thousand times more,
than my life; but, above my life and my reputation, I valued you. You
are drowning, you say. Well, then, let us flee. One word from you, and I
leave all,--honor, c