"I am mad, then, am I, as my whims seem to announce? Ah, it has not been your fault that these appearances, of which you were the sole cause, which I affected from compassion to you (you do not deserve that I should explain to you my meaning)--it has not been your fault, I repeat, that these appearances should indeed become reality! But I believed that, enlightened, at least, by these alternations of passion and horror----"
"Horror!" repeated the prince, coldly,--"I believed that you would have understood the enormity of your crimes, and the endurance of my infatuation which survived them. But, no; not even that! Happily for me at this moment that infatuation is over; your last blow has destroyed it. But the horror still endures--do you mark me?--the horror, I say----"
"I hear you--_mon Dieu!_--but I understand you not."
"I have loved you, you bear my name--thus this abominable secret shall remain buried between us. Go, then, in Heaven's name, depart, and thank me on your knees for being as forbearing as I am!"
Madame de Hansfeld looked at her husband with alarm; she had nothing to reproach herself with except her love for De Morville, and that love did not deserve the fearful reproaches with which the prince overwhelmed her. Yet he seemed perfectly in his senses; there was nothing wild in his look or his demeanour. Wishing to see if he would make any allusion to her love for De Morville, which by some inexplicable chance M. de Hansfeld might have detected, she said to him,--
"When I married you, sir, I told you frankly my heart was not free; I have loved--passionately loved. What I then said, I now repeat: I do not love you with passion,--but, before God who hears me, I have never been unfaithful to you!"
"Unfaithful to me!" exclaimed the prince; "that would be even commendable when compared with the crimes which you have committed."
"I!" cried Paula, clasping her hands with animation; "why such calumny is as infamous as it is absurd!"
"What! do you dare deny that yesterday evening----Ah! no never," exclaimed the prince, shuddering,--"never did machination more infernal emanate from human brain! I shook with fear as much as with surprise,--and you are not on your knees before me with supplicating hands, but stand as you are, calm and contemptuous--do you not know, madame, that there are judges and a scaffold?"