eize
a weapon.

"What! with your own hand?"

"The hand shall be found."

"You are so beautiful at this moment!" said Camors; "I am dying with the
desire to fall at your feet. Acknowledge only that you wished to try me,
or that you were mad for a moment."

She gave a savage smile.

"Oh! you fear, my friend," she said, coldly; then raising again her
voice, which assumed a malignant tone, "You are right, I am not mad, I
did not wish to try you; I am jealous, I am betrayed, and I shall revenge
myself--no matter what it costs me--for I care for nothing more in this
world!--Go, and guard her!"

"Be it so; I go," said Camors. He immediately left the salon and the
chateau; he reached the railway station on foot, and that evening arrived
at Reuilly.

Something terrible there awaited him.

During his absence, Madame de Camors, accompanied by her mother, had gone
to Paris to make some purchases. She remained there three days. She had
returned only that morning. He himself arrived late in the evening. He
thought he observed some constraint in their reception of him, but he did
not dwell upon it in the state of mind in which he was.

This is what had occurred: Madame de Camors, during her stay in Paris,
had gone, as was her custom, to visit her aunt, Madame de la Roche-Jugan.
Their intercourse had always been very constrained. Neither their
characters nor their religion coincided. Madame de Camors contented
herself with not liking her aunt, but Madame de la Roche-Jugan hated her
niece. She found a good occasion to prove this, and did not lose it. They
had not seen each other since the General's death. This event, which
should have caused Madame de la Roche-Jugan to reproach herself, had
simply exasperated her. Her bad action had recoiled upon herself. The
death of M. Campvallon had finally destroyed her last hopes, which she
had believed she could have founded on the anger and desperation of the
old man. Since that time she was animated against her nephew and the
Marquise with the rage of one of the Furies. She learned through Vautrot
that M. de Camors had been in the chamber of Madame de Campvallon the
night of the General's death. On this foundation of truth she did not
fear to frame the most odious suspicions; and Vautrot, baffled like her
in his vengeance and in his envy, had aided her. A few sinister rumors,
escaping apparently from this source, had even crept at this time into
Parisian society.

M. de Camors and