"She was perfectly calm and self-possessed, and if I had any doubts remaining they would have been completely dissipated in the evening. I had left Paula dull, and almost morose; the next day I found her tranquil, affectionate, and kind; she held out her hand, and asked my pardon for having left me so abruptly on the previous evening."
"Such hypocrisy is inconceivable," said Pierre Raimond.
"Oh, no, no—she was not culpable! her calmness proves it," said Bertha.
"I thought as you do," continued M. de Hansfeld, "there was so much sincerity in her accent. And her look, her language, was so natural, that, overcome by remorse and shame, I fell at her feet, and, bursting into tears, begged her pardon. She looked at me with surprise. I dared not explain myself further, for if innocent my suspicion was an abominable outrage. I replied to her that I feared I had been hasty with her on the previous evening. She believed me, and here this ended.
"How can I describe to you what passed in me after that day? My mad love for Paula increased, I may say in proportion to the reproaches I made against myself for my suspicions. I could not forgive myself for having dared to accuse a woman who had given me so many proofs of frankness."
"In truth," observed Bertha, "when you had asked her hand, why did she declare to you that her heart was not free, at the risk of breaking off a marriage so advantageous for her? No! no! she was innocent of that horrible crime."
"And you had no enemies?" asked Pierre Raimond.
"None that I know of."
"How, then, do you account for the sudden, convulsive death of the spaniel, in whose death there was every sign of poisoning?"
"I continued to bewilder myself on this inexplicable point, to prevent as it were my thoughts from dwelling on it, so anxious was I to believe in Paula's innocence. Painfully did I expiate this atrocious suspicion; twenty times I was on the point of confessing all to her, but I dared not, her affection for me was already so lukewarm, so uncertain—such an avowal would for ever have alienated us. However, for my own repose, I ought to have told her all, for she began to find my language occasionally wild,—my involuntary references seemed incoherent. Sometimes profoundly touched by a word or a tender attention on her part, I cried in a kind of bewilderment, 'I am very guilty—forgive me—I was wrong!'