"I should have said hope; for, if I have caused you unhappiness, madame, I can perhaps bring it to an end. Say a word," he added, kneeling beside her on a cushion that had fallen from the divan, "ask me for my blood, my life!"
"Oh! hush!" said Indiana bitterly, withdrawing her hand; "you made a shameful misuse of promises before; try to repair the evil you have done!"
"I intend to do it; I will do it!" he cried, trying to take her hand again.
"It is too late," she said. "Give me back my companion, my sister; give me back Noun, my only friend!"
A cold shiver ran through Raymon's veins. This time he had no need to encourage her emotion; there are emotions which awake unbidden, mighty and terrible, without the aid of art.
"She knows all," he thought, "and she has judged me."
Nothing could be more humiliating to him than to be reproached for his crime by the woman who had been his innocent accomplice; nothing more bitter than to see Noun's rival lamenting her death.
"Yes, monsieur," said Indiana, raising her face, down which the tears were streaming, "you were the cause—"
But she paused when she observed Raymon's pallor. It must have been most alarming, for he had never suffered so keenly.
Thereupon all the kindness of her heart and all the involuntary emotion which he aroused in her resumed their sway over Madame Delmare.