husband’s agent, when, after a conference of several hours, he came out of his room; and making herself as sweet and fascinating as possible, she used all her cunning to find out something which would enlighten her as to what he was about. But no one could, or at least would, satisfy her curiosity; all gave evasive replies, as if Sauvresy had cautioned them, or as if there were nothing to tell.
No complaints were heard from Sauvresy. He talked constantly of Bertha and Hector; he wished all the world to know their devotion to him; he called them his “guardian angels,” and blessed Heaven that had given him such a wife and such a friend. Sauvresy’s illness now became so serious that Tremorel began to despair; he became alarmed; what position would his friend’s death leave him in? Bertha, having become a widow, would be implacable. He resolved to find out her inmost thoughts at the first opportunity; she anticipated him, and saved him the trouble of broaching the subject. One afternoon, when they were alone, M. Plantat being in attendance at the sick man’s bedside, Bertha commenced.
“I want some advice, Hector, and you alone can give it to me. How can I find out whether Clement, within the past day or two, has not changed his will in regard to me?”
“His will?”
“Yes, I’ve already told you that by a will of which I myself have a copy, Sauvresy has left me his whole fortune. I fear that he may perhaps revoke it.”
“What an idea!”
“Ah, I have reasons for my apprehensions. What are all these agents and attorneys doing at Valfeuillu? A stroke of this man’s pen may ruin me. Don’t you see that he can deprive me of his millions, and reduce me to my dowry of fifty thousand francs?”
“But he will not do it; he loves you—”
“Are you sure of it? I’ve told you, there are three millions; I must have this fortune—not for myself, but for you; I want it, I must have it! But how can I find out—how? how?”
Hector was very indignant. It was to this end, then, that his delays had conducted him! She thought that she had a right now to dispose of him in spite of himself, and, as it were, to purchase him. And he could not, dared not, say anything!
“We must be patient,” said he, “and wait—”
“Wait—for what? Till he’s dead?”
“Don’t speak so.”
“Why not?” Bertha went up to him, and in a low voice, muttered:
“He has only a week to live; and see here—”
She drew a little vial from her pocket, and held it up to him.
“That is what convinces me that I am not mistaken.”
Hector became livid, and could not stifle a cry of horror. He comprehended all now—he saw how it was that Bertha had been so easily subdued, why she had refrained from speaking of Laurence, her strange words, her calm confidence.
“Poison!” stammered he, confounded.
“Yes, poison.”
“You have not used it?”
She fixed a hard, stern look upon him—the look which had subdued his will, against which he had struggled in vain—and in a calm voice, emphasizing each word, answered:
“I have used it.”
The count was, indeed, a dangerous man, unscrupulous, not recoiling from any wickedness when his passions were to be indulged, capable of everything; but this horrible crime awoke in him all that remained of honest energy.
“Well,” he cried, in disgust, “you will not use it again!”
He hastened toward the door, shuddering; she stopped him.
“Reflect before you act,” said she, coldly. “I will betray the fact of your relations with me; who will then believe that you are not my accomplice?”
He saw the force of this terrible menace, coming from Bertha.
“Come,” said she, ironically, “speak—betray me if you choose. Whatever happens, for happiness or misery, we shall no longer be separated; our destinies will be the same.”
Hector fell heavily into a chair, more overwhelmed than if he had been struck with a hammer. He held his bursting forehead between his hands; he saw himself shut up in an infernal circle, without outlet.
“I am lost!” he stammered, without knowing what he said, “I am lost!”
He was to be pitied; his face was terribly haggard, great drops of perspiration stood at the roots of his hair, his eyes wandered as if he were insane. Bertha shook him rudely by the arm, for his cowardice exasperated her.
“You are afraid,” she said. “You are trembling! Lost? You would not say so, if you loved me as I do you. Will you be lost because I am to be your wife, because we shall be free to love in the face of all the world? Lost! Then you have no idea of what I have endured? You don’t know, then, that I am tired of suffering, fearing, feigning.”
“Such a crime!”
She burst out with a laugh that made him shudder.
“You ought to have said so,” said she, with a look full of contempt, “the day you won me from Sauvresy—the day that you stole the wife of this friend who saved your life. Do you think that was a less horrid crime? You knew as well as I did how much my husband loved me, and that he would have preferred to die, rather than lose me thus.”
“But he knows nothing, suspects nothing of it.”
“You are mistaken; Sauvresy knows all.”
“Impossible!”
“All, I tell you—and he has known all since that day when he came home so late from hunting. Don’t you remember that I noticed his strange look, and said to you that my husband suspected something? You shrugged your shoulders. Do you forget the steps in the vestibule the night I went to your room? He had been spying on us. Well, do you want a more certain proof? Look at this letter, which I found, crumpled up and wet, in one of his vest pockets.”
She showed him the letter which Sauvresy had forcibly taken from Jenny, and he recognized it well.
“It is a fatality,” said he, overwhelmed. “But we can separate and break off with each other. Bertha, I can go away.”
“It’s too late. Believe me, Hector, we are to-day defending our lives. Ah, you don’t know Clement! You don’t know what the fury of a man like him can be, when he sees that his confidence has been outrageously abused, and his trust vilely betrayed. If he has said nothing to me, and has not let us see any traces of his implacable anger, it is because he is meditating some frightful vengeance.”
This was only too probable, and Hector saw it clearly.
“What shall we do?” he asked, in a hoarse voice; he was almost speechless.
“Find out what change he has made in his will.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know yet. I came to ask your advice, and I find you more cowardly than a woman. Let me act, then; don’t do anything yourself; I will do all.”
He essayed an objection.
“Enough,” said she. “He must not ruin us after all—I will see —I will think.”
Someone below called her. She went down, leaving Hector overcome with despair.
That evening, during which Bertha seemed happy and smiling, his face finally betrayed so distinctly the traces of his anguish, that Sauvresy tenderly asked him if he were not ill?
“You exhaust yourself tending on me, my good Hector,” said he. “How can I ever repay your devotion?”
Tremorel had not the strength to reply.
“And that man knows all,”