re ruined for ever:"

You will not do it! "entreated the guilty woman, clasping her hands.

"I have only to tell your husband," continued Pierre, "that his wife
has dishonoured him, and to explain the reason of his unnaturally heavy
sleep."

"He will kill me!"

"No doubt: he is jealous, he is an Italian, he will know how to avenge
himself--even as I do."

"But I never did you any harm," Rose cried in despair. "Oh! have pity,
have mercy, and spare me!"

"On one condition."

"What is it?"

"Come with me."

Terrified almost out of her mind, Rose allowed him to lead her away.

Bertrande had just finished her evening prayer, and was preparing for
bed, when she was startled by several knocks at her door. Thinking that
perhaps some neighbour was in need of help, she opened it immediately,
and to her astonishment beheld a dishevelled woman whom Pierre grasped
by the arm. He exclaimed vehemently--

"Here is thy judge! Now, confess all to Bertrande!"

Bertrande did not at once recognise the woman, who fell at her feet,
overcome by Pierre's threats.

"Tell the truth here," he continued, "or I go and tell it to your
husband, at your own home!"--"Ah! madame, kill me," said the unhappy
creature, hiding her face; "let me rather die by your hand than his!"

Bertrande, bewildered, did not understand the position in the least, but
she recognised Rose--

"But what is the matter, madame? Why are you here at this hour, pale and
weeping? Why has my uncle dragged you hither? I am to judge you, does he
say? Of what crime are you guilty?"

"Martin might answer that, if he were here," remarked Pierre.

A lightning flash of jealousy shot through Bertrande's soul at these
words, all her former suspicions revived.

"What!" she said, "my husband! What do you mean?"

"That he left this woman's house only a little while ago, that for a
month they have been meeting secretly. You are betrayed: I have seen
them and she does not dare to deny it."

"Have mercy!" cried Rose, still kneeling.

The cry was a confession. Bertrande became pate as death. "O God!" she
murmured, "deceived, betrayed--and by him!"

"For a month past," repeated the old man.

"Oh! the wretch," she continued, with increasing passion; "then his
whole life is a lie! He has abused my credulity, he now abuses my love!
He does not know me! He thinks he can trample on me--me, in whose power
are his fortune, his honour, his very life itself!"

Then, turning to R