"When she saw you wounded, what did she say?" inquired Bertha.
"To depict her agony, her amazement, her anxious cares, would be impossible; with the most natural air in the world she declared that an investigation ought to take place. She also had remarked the sinister appearance of the master of the auberge, and, like myself, exhausted herself in vain conjecture. Frantz declared that he had seen no one pass him, and that they must have got in by a window which opened into the balcony, but that window was found closely shut. Paula's tone was so natural that my old servant, who never liked her, and had witnessed my marriage most reluctantly, never for an instant thought of accusing my wife."
"But the little thin hand you seized—the smell of the peculiar perfume which your wife used!" said Pierre Raimond.
"I repeat to you that my reason wandered in this labyrinth of singular contradictions. Paula, aided by Frantz, insisted on dressing my wound herself, and there was not the slightest affectation either in her manner or her language."
"To commit such a crime, and display such hypocrisy, is the height of wickedness!" said the engraver.
"Unquestionably; and the monstrousness of such a character excited my doubts in that of the evidence before me. To put the cope-stone on fatality, Paula, from interest, pity, or calculation, was never so affectionate, I ought almost say tender, as when bestowing all her attention upon me after this accident."
"Stratagem! infernal stratagem!" cried Pierre Raimond.
"It was, perhaps, remorse for her crime," said Bertha.
"It was my misfortune to hesitate in turns amongst so many conflicting facts. It would have been less distressing for me to have believed Paula completely guilty or completely innocent; but, on the contrary, by an inconceivable mobility of impression, I passed in turns from passionate love to fits of anger and horror. My agonies at Trieste were nothing in comparison with the torture I then endured. A head more weak than mine would not have resisted these shocks. Sometimes, after having testified to my wife, by some incoherent word, the terror with which she inspired me, reflecting that, in spite of frightful appearances, I had no real certainty, and might be perhaps deceived, I sobbed bitterly and implored her pardon. In the end she believed my senses were wandering. What shall I tell you? At first I found a bitter satisfaction in lending myself to this report, then in increasing and giving credibility to it by studied whims. This was not all; as soon as they believed me liable to fits of lunacy, I was enabled by this plea to give way to my mistrust, whilst my precaution being attributed to my derangement, my wife was in no way compromised. Sometimes believing my life threatened, I shut myself up alone for whole days, only eating bread and fruit which my faithful Frantz bought for me himself, and at other times, in my excessive terror I did not dare even to touch these simple aliments. At other times, I blushed at my alarm, and was convinced of Paula's innocence, and then returned to her with the most bitter repentance, but her reception of me was chill and disdainful."
"Poor Arnold!" said Pierre Raimond, with emotion; "no doubt you are weak, but this very weakness proceeds from a noble source; you fear to accuse Paula unjustly, and in truth there is something startling in saying to any one and that without certain proofs, 'You are a homicide, twice have you sought to assassinate me!'"