"Or woman?" queried the whisperer, whose voice seemed my own voice, just as in that story of Edgar Poe's the voice of William Wilson found an echo in his double.
"Or woman? Ah, yes—Eloise—a moment of passion——"
"A moment of passion murdered Margaret de Saluce."
"But God is good; He does not create to torture; He does not bring the dead back to confront them with their crimes."
"Know you that there is a God?" replied the whisperer. "And not a Fate working inexorably and by law?"
"Cease!" I replied, "Let there be a Fate. I am a living man with a will. No dead fate working by law shall drag me against my will, or move me to another purpose than my own. I will not—I will not!"
This mental dialogue had brought me a long way. I was called to my senses by a bright light illuminating what seemed a river of blood stretching across the pavement.
It was a red carpet, and the great house from whose door it was laid down was the Prussian Embassy.
A carriage, flanked by a squadron of Cent Gardes, was at the pavement, and a man was leaving the Embassy.