uestion her."

Brigitte rose with difficulty; she took her fan and began to walk up and
down the room.

She was breathing hard; I had wounded her. She was absorbed in thought
and we exchanged two or three glances that were almost cold. She stepped
to her desk, opened it, drew out a package of letters tied together with
a ribbon, and threw it at my feet without a word.

But I was looking neither at her nor her letters; I had just thrown a
stone into the abyss and was listening to the echoes. For the first time
offended pride was depicted on Brigitte's face. There was no longer
either anxiety or pity in her eyes, and, just as I had come to feel
myself other than I had ever been, so I saw in her a woman I did not
know.

"Read that," she said, finally. I stepped up to her and took her hand.

"Read that, read that!" she repeated in freezing tones.

I took the letters. At that moment I felt so persuaded of her innocence
that I was seized with remorse.

"You remind me," she said, "that I owe you the story of my life; sit down
and you shall learn it. You will open these drawers, and you will read
all that I have written and all that has been written to me."

She sat down and motioned me to a chair. I saw that she found it
difficult to speak. She was pale as death, her voice constrained, her
throat swollen.

"Brigitte! Brigitte!" I cried, "in the name of heaven, do not speak! God
is my witness I was not born such as you see me; during my life I have
been neither suspicious nor distrustful. I have been undone, my heart has
been seared by the treachery of others. A frightful experience has led me
to the very brink of the precipice, and for a year I have seen nothing
but evil here below. God is my witness that, up to this day, I did not
believe myself capable of playing the ignoble role I have assumed, the
meanest role of all, that of a jealous lover. God is my witness that I
love you and that you are the only one in the world who can cure me of
the past.

"I have had to do, up to this time, with women who deceived me, or who
were unworthy of love. I have led the life of a libertine; I bear on my
heart certain marks that will never be effaced. Is it my fault if
calumny, and base suggestion, to-day planted in a heart whose fibres were
still trembling with pain and ready to assimilate all that resembles
sorrow, have driven me to despair? I have just heard the name of a man I
have never met, of whose existence I was ignora