rage failed her.

"You have perjured yourself to your husband and to God!" said Bergenheim
slowly. "Do you know what kind of woman you are?"

Clemence remained for some time powerless to reply; her respiration was
so painful that each breath seemed like suffocation; her head, after
rolling about on the back of the chair, fell upon her breast, like a
blade of grass broken and bruised by the rain.

"If you have read those letters," she murmured, when she had strength
enough to speak, "you must know that I am not as unworthy as you think. I
am very guilty--but I still have a right to be forgiven."

Christian, at this moment, had he been gifted with the intelligence which
fathoms the mysteries of the heart, might have renewed the bonds which
were so near being broken; he could at least have stopped Clemence upon a
dangerous path and saved her from a most irreparable fall. But his nature
was too unrefined for him to see the degrees which separate weakness from
vice, and the intoxication of a loving heart from the depravity of a
corrupt character. With the obstinacy of narrow-minded people, he had
been looking at the whole thing in its worst light, and for several hours
already he had decided upon his wife's guilt in his own mind; this served
now as a foundation for his stern conduct. His features remained
perfectly impassive as he listened to Clemence's words of justification,
which she uttered in a weak, broken voice.

"I know that I merit your hatred-but if you could know how much I suffer,
you would surely forgive me--You left me in Paris very young,
inexperienced; I ought to have fought against this feeling better than I
did, but I used up in this struggle all the strength that I had--You can
see how pale and changed I have become within the past year. I have aged
several years in those few months; I am not yet what you call a--a lost
woman. He ought to have told you that--"

"Oh, he has! of course he has," replied Christian with bitter irony. "Oh,
you have in him a loyal cavalier!"

"You do not believe me, then! you do not believe me!" she continued,
wringing her hands in despair; "but read these letters, the last ones.
See whether one writes like this to a woman who is entirely lost--"

She tried to take the package which her husband held; instead of giving
the letters to her, he lighted them at the candle and then threw them
into the fireplace. Clemence uttered a cry and darted forward to save
them, but Christ