“You have no pity,” wailed she.
He gazed upon her with eyes in which the pent-up anger of twenty years blazed and consumed slowly. “And you, what are you? I drained to the bottom the poisoned cup held out to a deceived husband by an unfaithful wife. Each day widened the breach between us, until at last we sank into this miserable existence which is wearing out my life. I kept no watch on you; I was not made for a jailer. What I wanted was your soul and heart. To imprison the body was easy, but your soul would still have been free to wander in imagination to the meeting-place where your lover expected you. I know not how I had the courage to remain by your side. It was not to save an honor that had already gone, but merely to keep up appearances; for as long as we were nominally together the tongue of scandal was forced to remain silent.”
Again the unhappy woman attempted to protest her innocence, and again the Count paid no heed to her. “I wished too,” resumed he, “to save some portion of our property, for your insatiable extravagance swallowed up all like a bottomless abyss. At last your trades-people, believing me to be ruined, refused you credit, and this saved me. I had my daughter to think of, and have gathered together a rich dowry for her, and yet——” he hesitated, and ceased speaking for a moment.
“And yet,” repeated Madame de Mussidan.
“I have never kissed her,” he burst forth with a fresh and terrible explosion of wrath, “without feeling a hideous doubt as to whether she was really my child.”
This was more than the Countess could endure.
“Enough,” she cried, “enough! I have been guilty, Octave; but not so guilty as you imagine.”
“Why do you venture to defend yourself?”
“Because it is my duty to guard Sabine.”
“You should have thought of this earlier,” answered the Count with a sneer. “You should have moulded her mind—have taught her what was noble and good, and have perused the unsullied pages of the book of her young heart.”