ecause you are my
husband, and have only known him for a short time, after all--because I
have been his friend for a very long while--and because his first will,
made during Forestier's lifetime, was already in my favor."

George began to stride up and down. He said: "You cannot accept."

She replied in a tone of indifference: "Precisely so; then it is not
worth while waiting till Saturday, we can let Maitre Lamaneur know at
once."

He stopped short in front of her, and they again stood for some moments
with their eyes riveted on one another, striving to fathom the
impenetrable secret of their hearts, to cut down to the quick of their
thoughts. They tried to see one another's conscience unveiled in an
ardent and mute interrogation; the struggle of two beings who, living
side by side, were always ignorant of one another, suspecting, sniffing
round, watching, but never understanding one another to the muddy
depths of their souls. And suddenly he murmured to her face, in a low
voice: "Come, admit that you were De Vaudrec's mistress."

She shrugged her shoulders, saying: "You are ridiculous. Vaudrec was
very fond of me, very--but there was nothing more--never."

He stamped his foot. "You lie. It is not possible."

She replied, quietly: "It is so, though."

He began to walk up and down again, and then, halting once more, said:
"Explain, then, how he came to leave the whole of his fortune to you."

She did so in a careless and disinterested tone, saying: "It is quite
simple. As you said just now, he had only ourselves for friends, or
rather myself, for he has known me from a child. My mother was a
companion at the house of some relatives of his. He was always coming
here, and as he had no natural heirs he thought of me. That there was a
little love for me in the matter is possible. But where is the woman who
has not been loved thus? Why should not such secret, hidden affection
have placed my name at the tip of his pen when he thought of expressing
his last wishes? He brought me flowers every Monday. You were not at all
astonished at that, and yet he did not bring you any, did he? Now he has
given me his fortune for the same reason, and because he had no one to
offer it to. It would have been, on the contrary, very surprising for
him to have left it to you. Why should he have done so? What were you to
him?"

She spoke so naturally and quietly that George hesitated. He said,
however: "All the same, we cannot accept th