"Poor Raphael, to die so young! Alas! in provoking M. de Brévannes, he yielded to a feeling of just and courageous despair; and yet his murderer, on his side, and not unreasonably, invoked the right of legitimate defence.
"It is true, Raphael no longer suffers, but I suffer daily; every instant of my life is a punishment! What can I do?
"Resign myself.
"To rouse me from my painful apathy, it required that I should again see the man who has caused me so much misery.
"How strange! I felt wholly different from what I had expected, what I ought, I think, to have felt, at the sight of him. Yes, I confess it with horror (who will ever know this avowal?), my anger, my indignation, do not seem to be commensurate with his crimes.
"In vain do I curse my weakness; in vain do I say to myself that this man has calumniated me in an infamous manner; in vain do I repeat to myself that he has slain Raphael, that he is almost the author of the ills I endure, that he can at this moment ruin me. In spite of myself I have the baseness to believe that it is the love with which I have inspired him which has plunged him into this abyss of horrible actions. Dare I add, that sometimes I am capable of excusing him?"
De Brévannes felt his heart beat violently; his unchecked pride, the blindness of his passion, served Iris even beyond her hope.
Nothing is more vulgar, more antiquated, yet more true than the adage, "We believe what we desire."
In these pages, which he believed were written by Madame de Hansfeld, M. de Brévannes beheld the proof of an impression which was composed of hatred and love, affright and admiration.
Admiration scarcely avowed, it is true, but which, as De Brévannes' vanity suggested, was but love unsuspected or resisted.