against
yourself. Heaven is just."

These words started up in letters of fire before her eyes as the presage
of coming misfortune, and telling her that the hour of retribution had
now come, and that she must be prepared to suffer, as an atonement for
her crimes. Then it was that she felt all was lost, and she must go
to her husband for aid, unless she desired that copies of the stolen
letters should be sent to him; and in a little boudoir, adjoining
Sabine's own room, she opened her heart and told her husband all. She
performed it with all the skill of a woman who, without descending to
falsehood, contrives to conceal the truth. But she could not hide
the share that she had taken, both in the death of the late Duke of
Champdoce and the disappearance of George de Croisenois.

The Count's brain reeled. He called up to his memory what Diana had been
when he first saw and loved her at Laurebourg: how pure and modest she
looked! what virginal candor sat upon her brow! and yet she was even
then doing her best to urge on a son to murder his father.

De Mussidan had had hideous doubts concerning the relations of Norbert
and Diana, both before and after marriage; but his wife firmly denied
this at the moment when she was revealing the other guilty secrets of
her past life. He had believed that Sabine was not his child, and now he
had to reproach himself with the indifference he had displayed towards
her.

He made no answer to the terrible revelation that was poured into his
ears; but when the Countess had concluded, he rose and left the room,
stretching out his hands and grasping the walls for support, like a
drunken man.

The Count and Countess believed that Sabine had slept through this
interview, but they were mistaken, for Sabine had heard all those fatal
words--"ruin, dishonor, and despair!" At first she scarcely understood.
Were not these words merely the offspring of her delirium? She strove
to shake it off, but too soon she knew that the whispered words were
sad realities, and she lay on her bed quivering with terror. Much of the
conversation escaped her, but she heard enough. Her mother's past sins
were to be exposed if the daughter did not marry a man entirely unknown
to her--the Marquis de Croisenois. She knew that her torments would not
be of very long duration, for to part with her love for Andre would be
to part with life itself. She made up her mind to live until she had
saved her parents' honor by the sacri