Claude was at her side. He whispered softly again: "I love you;" and, as he opened his arms, she sank into his embrace, incapable of further resistance to the passionate love in her heart.
Odette was alone in the train. She had left Dijon the day after her arrival, and was returning to Paris. As on the journey down, her brain was throbbing with thoughts of all kinds. She was seeking excuses for her crime, and the books she had studied with her father supplied her with many. Did not Darwin write, "All human beings are forced to obey their instincts?" Spencer wrote, "Will can never conquer Nature;" while Rousseau said, "Uncontrollable emotion excuses any crime." Those she revered as her masters, justified her. Why should she feel called upon to accuse herself? Her conscience could be at rest, as she had resisted this love in her heart to the utmost.
She recalled one quotation after another, to show that she had, after all, nothing to reproach herself with. She acknowledged no responsibility to any God. Only to her own conscience was she responsible, and that gave her absolution. Since the world is as it is, all weak human creatures must expect to be occasionally worsted in their strife against evil. And then, she knew that this life is the end of the soul. Her father had taught her that there is no Judge to punish the wicked and reward the good, as the Bible declares. And before arriving at this total annihilation, the inevitable end of all men and things, she was going to live to enjoy life and love and be happy. She would be prudent, so that no one would suspect, and there would be nothing to fear. At this moment, she thought of her sister, and a sharp pang of agony pierced her soul as she felt that Germaine would despise her. In the midst of this total shipwreck of all that was true and good in her heart, only this affection for her sister remained; and the poor creature, born with good impulses, but corrupted by her wretched education, degraded by the teachings of the brutal materialism of the day, burst into sobs of sorrow and despair.
Then trying to find some way out of her grief, she began to apply the same sophistic reasonings to her sister. Yes, Germaine would despise her, but only because she had been brought up amid the superstitions and mummeries of religion. Germaine's judgment would be warped by her absurd faith in God and Christianity. She would not pay any attention to her contempt. An intelligent being should be governed by reason, and not by superstition. Her reason told her that when one has done all in one's power, that is sufficient. And she complacently rested in the free pardon given by her reason, without reflecting that day before yesterday her reason had been the first to condemn her.
The unhappy creature did not know that every human being has a terrible judge in himself. No matter how low or degraded he may be, some day his conscience will stand before him, judge and executioner at the same time; and from that day he will despise himself as he is despised by all who know his crime. He will never be able to tear off this Nessus' robe that eats into his vitals!
CHAPTER X.
"Yes, M. David," continued Mme. Descoutures, "I was so beautiful when I was seventeen, that I made a great sensation. I remember well one little incident. Sundays, when the men on the estate had worked particularly well during the week, my father used to put me in a chair just inside the gate, and let them come up and look at me as a reward."
Grenoble interrupted her: "And was that all the reward they received? Your father must have been a great joker."