eles could
not have uttered it. She knew what mental agony had urged the baron to
a sort of moral suicide, and led him to contract the vice in which he
wasted his life and squandered, or, at least risk, his millions.

"Nor is this all," he continued. "Listen. As I have often told you, I
was sure that my wife became a mother in my absence. I sought the
child for years, hoping that through the offspring I might discover the
father. Ah, well! I've found what I sought, at last. The child is now
a beautiful young girl. She lives at the Hotel de Chalusse as your
brother's daughter. She is known as Mademoiselle Marguerite."

Madame d'Argeles listened, leaning against the wall for support, and
trembling like a leaf. Her reason was shaken by so many repeated blows,
and her son, her brother, Marguerite, Pascal Ferailleur, Coralth,
Valorsay--all those whom she loved or feared, or hated--rose like
spectres before her troubled brain. The horror of the truth exceeded her
most frightful apprehensions. The strangeness of the reality surpassed
every flight of fancy. And, moreover, the baron's calmness increased her
stupor. She so often had heard him give vent to his rage and despair in
terrible threats, that she could not believe he would be thus resigned.
But was his calmness real? Was it not a mask, would not his fury
suddenly break forth?

However, he continued, "It is thus that destiny makes us its sport--it
is thus that it laughs at our plans. Do you remember, Lia, the day when
I met you wandering through the streets of Paris--with your child in
your arms--pale and half dead with fatigue, faint for want of food,
homeless and penniless? You saw no refuge but in death, as you have
since told me. How could I imagine when I rescued you that I was saving
my greatest enemy's sister from suicide--the sister of the man whom I
was vainly pursuing? And yet this might not be the end, if I chose
to have it otherwise. The count is dead, but I can still return him
disgrace for disgrace. He dishonored me. What prevents me from casting
ineffaceable opprobrium upon the great name of Chalusse, of which he
was so proud? He seduced my wife. To-day I can tell all Paris what his
sister has been and what she is to-day."

Ah! it was this--yes, it was this that Madame d'Argeles had dreaded. She
fell upon her knees, and, with clasped hands she entreated: "Pity!--oh!
have pity--forgive me! Have mercy! Have I not always been a faithful
and devoted friend