in
the habit of shifting my conscience. Yes or no," he insisted, with a
return of his usual excitement, "did I leave the catacombs to arrange
that unfortunate duel? Yes or no, did I yield to the paroxysm of choler
which possessed me on hearing of the engagement of Ardea and on finding
that I was in the presence of that equivocal Hafner? Yes or no, did that
duel help to enlighten Madame Gorka as to her husband's doings, and, in
consequence, Mademoiselle Steno as to her mother's? Did you not relate
to me the progress of her anguish since that scandal, there just
now?... And if I have been startled, as I have been, by the news of that
suicide, know it has been for this reason especially, because a voice
has said to me: 'A few of the tears of that dead girl are laid to your
account."'

"But, my poor friend," interrupted Dorsenne, "whence such reasoning?
According to that, we could not live any more. There enters into our
lives, by indirect means, a collection of actions which in no way
concerns us, and in admitting that we have a debt of responsibility to
pay, that debt commences and ends in that which we have wished directly,
sincerely, clearly."

"It would be very convenient," replied the Marquis, with still more
vivacity, "but the proof that it is not true is that you yourself
are filled with remorse at not having saved the soul so weak of that
defenseless child. Ah, I do not mince the truth to myself, and I shall
not do so to you. You remember the morning when you were so gay, and
when you gave me the theory of your cosmopolitanism? It amused you, as
a perfect dilettante, so you said, to assist in one of those dramas of
race which bring into play the personages from all points of the earth
and of history, and you then traced to me a programme very true, my
faith, and which events have almost brought about. Madame Steno has
indeed conducted herself toward her two lovers as a Venetian of the time
of Aretin; Chapron, with all the blind devotion of a descendant of an
oppressed race; his sister with the villainous ferocity of a rebel who
at length shakes off the yoke, since you think she wrote those anonymous
letters. Hafner and Ardea have laid bare two detestable souls, the one
of an infamous usurer, half German, half Dutch; the other of a degraded
nobleman, in whom is revived some ancient 'condottiere'. Gorka has been
brave and mad, like entire Poland; his wife implacable and loyal, like
all of England. Maitland continu