Steno has been my
husband's mistress? It is not true. You lie! You lie! You lie! I do not
believe it."

"You do not believe me?" said Lydia, shrugging her shoulders. "As if I
had the least interest in deceiving you; as if one would lie when the
life of the only being one loves in the world is in the balance! For I
have only my brother, and perhaps to-morrow I shall no longer have
him.... But you shall believe me. I desire that we both hate that woman,
that we both be avenged upon her, as we both do not wish the duel to take
place--the duel of which, I repeat, she is the cause, the sole cause....
You do not believe me? Do you know what caused your husband to return?
You did not expect him; confess! It was I--I, do you hear--who wrote him
what Steno and Lincoln were doing; day after day I wrote about their
love, their meetings, their bliss. Ah, I was sure it would not be in
vain, and he returned. Is that a proof?"

"You did not do that?" cried Madame Gorka, recoiling with horror. "It was
infamous."

"Yes, I did it," replied Lydia, with savage pride, "and why not? It was
my right when she took my husband from me. You have only to return and to
look in the place where Gorka keeps his letters. You will certainly find
those I wrote, and others, I assure you, from that woman. For she has a
mania for letter-writing.... Do you believe me now, or will you repeat
that I have lied?"

"Never," returned Maud, with sorrowful indignation upon her lovely, loyal
face, "no, never will I descend to such baseness."

"Well, I will descend for you," said Lydia. "What you do not dare to do,
I will dare, and you will ask me to aid you in being avenged. Come," and,
seizing the hand of her stupefied companion, she drew her into Lincoln's
studio, at that moment unoccupied. She approached one of those Spanish
desks, called baygenos, and she touched two small panels, which
disclosed, on opening, a secret drawer, in which were a package of
letters, which she seized. Maud Gorka watched her with the same terrified
horror with which she would have seen some one killed and robbed. That
honorable soul revolted at the scene in which her mere presence made of
her an accomplice. But at the same time she was a prey, as had been her
husband several days before, to that maddening appetite to know the
truth, which becomes, in certain forms of doubt, a physical need, as
imperious as hunger and thirst, and she listened to Florent's sister, who
continued: