“I came, some time since, to tell you that my husband is alive.”
Leon sat as if he had not heard; it was his conscience which cried out:
“Your husband!”
“Is alive.”
She put her hand to her head, feeling as if all the blood in her body were surging there.
“Have you seen him?”
“Yes, and I should have died of fear if it had not been that you are here to protect me against that ruffian!”
These words roused Leon from a sort of stupor.
“I—what have I to do with it?” he exclaimed as though trying to fight his way out of this terrible nightmare by some hypocrisy of dignity. “Leave me. Have I anything to do with your husband—or with you either?”
In his soul a storm was raging which he was trying to quell by decency, honour—walls of sand which broke down at a touch. His brain was in a whirl, and conscious of no desire but that he could hate instead of loving her, he ordered Pepa to leave the room. Giving way to an impulse—whether of disgust or of honour he hardly knew, he said: