She offered De Marsay some letters, in which the young man saw, with surprise, strange figures, similar to those of a rebus, traced in blood, and illustrating phrases full of passion.
“But,” he cried, marveling at these hieroglyphics created by the alertness of jealousy, “you are in the power of an infernal genius?”
“Infernal,” she repeated.
“But how, then, were you able to get out?”
“Ah!” she said, “that was my ruin. I drove Dona Concha to choose between the fear of immediate death and anger to be. I had the curiosity of a demon, I wished to break the bronze circle which they had described between creation and me, I wished to see what young people were like, for I knew nothing of man except the Marquis and Cristemio. Our coachman and the lackey who accompanies us are old men....”
“But you were not always thus shut up? Your health...?”
“Ah,” she answered, “we used to walk, but it was at night and in the country, by the side of the Seine, away from people.”
“Are you not proud of being loved like that?”
“No,” she said, “no longer. However full it be, this hidden life is but darkness in comparison with the light.”
“What do you call the light?”