"My God!" murmured the young girl, in abject terror.
A horrible suspicion had assailed her.
Never supposing for an instant that Olivier could have an aristocrat for an intimate friend, the poor child feared that Gerald had taken another name in order to conceal, not the obscurity of his birth or condition,—these were no disgrace in Herminie's eyes,—but guilty or dishonourable antecedents. In short, she imagined that Gerald must have committed some dishonourable act in the past.
So, in her wild terror, the girl, holding up her two hands as if to ward off an impending blow, exclaimed, brokenly:
"Do not finish this shameful confession, do not, I beseech you."
"Shameful!" repeated Olivier. "What! because Gerald has concealed the fact that he is the Duc de Senneterre—"
"You say that Gerald, your friend—"
"Is the Duc de Senneterre! Yes, mademoiselle. We were at college together; he enlisted, as I did. In that way I met him again, and since that time our intimacy has never flagged. And now, Mlle. Herminie, you can, perhaps, understand why Gerald concealed his real name and position from you. It was a wrong to which I became an accomplice through thoughtlessness; for what has since become a serious matter, that I deeply regret, was at first merely intended as a joke. Unfortunately, the introduction of Gerald as a notary's clerk to Madame Herbaut had already been made, when a singular chance brought you and my friend together. You will understand the rest. But I repeat that Gerald resolved, of his own free will, to confess the truth to you, as a continued deception was too revolting to his sense of honour."
On hearing that Gerald, instead of being a disgraced man, hiding under an assumed name, had really been guilty of no other wrong than that of concealing his noble birth, the revulsion of feeling Herminie underwent was so sudden and violent that she at first experienced a sort of vertigo; but when she became capable of reflection, when she became able to realise the consequences of this revelation, the young girl, who was as pale as death, trembled in every limb. Her knees tottered under her, and for a moment she was obliged to lean against the mantel for support.
When she did speak, it was in a strangely altered voice.