a, a wolf to threaten, a slave to supplicate.

Suddenly he leaned over, seized her by the wrists, and raised her almost
roughly.

"Do you know," he said, in low, quivering tones, "that the lowest
of women is less culpable than you? Ten times, a hundred times, less
culpable! Do you know that I have the right to kill you?"

"Ah! that, yes! Do it! do it! do it!" she cried, with the smile of a mad
woman.

He pushed her slowly from him.

"Why have you committed this infamy? It was not for my fortune; you are
rich."

Marsa moaned, humiliated to the dust by this cold contempt. She would
have preferred brutal anger; anything, to this.

"Ah! your fortune!" she said, finding a last excuse for herself out of
the depth of her humiliation, which had now become eternal; "it was not
that, nor your name, nor your title that I wished: it was your love!"

The heart of the Prince seemed wrung in a vise as this word fell from
those lips, once adored, nay, still adored, soiled as they were.

"My love!"

"Yes, your love, your love alone! I would have confessed all, been your
mistress, your slave, your thing, if I--I had not feared to lose you,
to see myself abased in the eyes of you, whom I adored! I was afraid,
afraid of seeing you fly from me--yes, that was my crime! It is
infamous, ah! I know it; but I thought only of keeping you, you alone;
you, my admiration, my hero, my life, my god! I deserve to be punished;
yes, yes, I deserve it--But those letters--those letters which you would
have cast into the fire if I had not revealed the secret of my life--you
told me so yourself--I might have sworn what you asked, and you would
have believed me--I might have done so; but no, it would have been too
vile, too cowardly! Ah! kill me! That is what I deserve, that is what--"

"Where are you going?" she cried, interrupting herself, her eyes dilated
with fear, as she saw that Zilah, without answering, was moving toward
the door.

She forgot that she no longer had the right to question; she only felt,
that, once gone, she would never see him again. Ah! a thousand times
a blow with a knife rather than that! Was this the way the day, which
began so brightly, was to end?

"Where are you going?"

"What does that matter to you?"

"True! I beg your pardon. At least--at least, Monsieur, one word, I
implore. What are your commands? What do you wish me to do? There must
be laws to punish those who have done what I have done! Shall I accuse