and whispered: "Come, come,
confess."

She jerked herself away, and said, abruptly: "You are crazy. As if one
answered such questions."

She said this in so singular a tone that a cold shiver ran through her
husband's veins, and he remained dumbfounded, scared, almost breathless,
as though from some mental shock.

The carriage was now passing along the lake, on which the sky seemed to
have scattered its stars. Two swans, vaguely outlined, were swimming
slowly, scarcely visible in the shadow. George called out to the driver:
"Turn back!" and the carriage returned, meeting the others going at a
walk, with their lanterns gleaming like eyes in the night.

What a strange manner in which she had said it. Was it a confession? Du
Roy kept asking himself. And the almost certainty that she had deceived
her first husband now drove him wild with rage. He longed to beat her,
to strangle her, to tear her hair out. Oh, if she had only replied: "But
darling, if I had deceived him, it would have been with yourself," how
he would have kissed, clasped, worshiped her.

He sat still, his arms crossed, his eyes turned skyward, his mind too
agitated to think as yet. He only felt within him the rancor fermenting
and the anger swelling which lurk at the heart of all mankind in
presence of the caprices of feminine desire. He felt for the first time
that vague anguish of the husband who suspects. He was jealous at last,
jealous on behalf of the dead, jealous on Forestier's account, jealous
in a strange and poignant fashion, into which there suddenly entered a
hatred of Madeleine. Since she had deceived the other, how could he have
confidence in her himself? Then by degrees his mind became calmer, and
bearing up against his pain, he thought: "All women are prostitutes. We
must make use of them, and not give them anything of ourselves." The
bitterness in his heart rose to his lips in words of contempt and
disgust. He repeated to himself: "The victory in this world is to the
strong. One must be strong. One must be above all prejudices."

The carriage was going faster. It repassed the fortifications. Du Roy
saw before him a reddish light in the sky like the glow of an immense
forge, and heard a vast, confused, continuous rumor, made up of
countless different sounds, the breath of Paris panting this summer
night like an exhausted giant.

George reflected: "I should be very stupid to fret about it. Everyone
for himself. Fortune favors the bold