Now, after the stroke he had dealt her, it were the part of a gentleman to leave her. Even though her husband were nothing to her now, there was shock in the news. De Brencourt was very conscious of it, but the circumstances were exceptional, for he stood in peril of never seeing her again. And now, perhaps, after these wasted, unhappy years she would listen to him.
He got up and went towards her, but something in her attitude or in his own soul restrained him from speaking to her just then. He paused, stood looking desperately at her stricken figure for a moment, then, going back to his former place at the table, buried his face in his arms.
After a little he heard her voice say, falteringly, from where she was:
“Do you know any details, Monsieur le Comte—any place . . . when it was?”
He raised his head but did not look at her. “No,” he said slowly, gripping his hands together before him on the table. “M. de Kersaint said no more than this, that it was useless to write to the Duc de Trélan, because he had just heard that he was dead—had been dead . . . some time.”
When, at the repetition of that word “dead” he heard her catch her breath again, he felt as though he were bludgeoning her. But no—it was only a surgical operation . . . and better so for her. The man he was murdering was dead already. And it was too late to go back now.
“I do not know how M. de Kersaint was aware of this,” he went on. “He keeps his own counsel always. But that is what he said, Madame. I . . . I . . . .” He tried to add some formal words of sympathy, but that falsehood would not come, and he remained staring before him.
“But I must know more!” said the Duchesse to herself in a quick, breathless voice. “He will know, this M. de Kersaint, this kinsman. Oh, I must write to him at once—before you go, even, Comte!” She put her hand to her head. “Where—how shall I address the letter?”
He saw that he must give a direction that would never find its destination. How unexpectedly dark and tortuous it was beginning to be, this path! Suddenly realising that he was seated while she was standing he got up, and for the first time since the utterance of his lie, looked her in the face for a second. But he could not bear the sight, and it was with downcast gaze that he responded,
“It will be better for me to take the letter myself, Madame.”