She made a sign of assent. Ah, how pale she was!
“Then he took the money?”
There was a moment’s hesitation. The white lips parted, and an almost inaudible reply was whispered, “No, it was not he who took it; I gave it to him!”
“Unhappy woman!”
“Yes, most unhappy. He said that he needed it for two days only, and I bore for that time the sight of my husband’s despair and of Zénaïde’s tears, and the fear of seeing an innocent person condemned. Nothing came from Chariot. I wrote to him that if by the next day at eleven I heard nothing, I should denounce myself,—and here I am.”
“But what am I to do?”
“Arrest the real criminals, now that you know who they are.”
“But your husband—it will kill him!”
“And me, too,” she replied, with haughty bitterness. “To die is a very simple matter; to live is far more difficult.”
She spoke of death with a tone of feverish longing in her voice.