“Do you know,” he said, in low, quivering tones, “that the lowest of women is less culpable than you? Ten times, a hundred times, less culpable! Do you know that I have the right to kill you?”
“Ah! that, yes! Do it! do it! do it!” she cried, with the smile of a mad woman.
He pushed her slowly from him.
“Why have you committed this infamy? It was not for my fortune; you are rich.”
Marsa moaned, humiliated to the dust by this cold contempt. She would have preferred brutal anger; anything, to this.
“Ah! your fortune!” she said, finding a last excuse for herself out of the depth of her humiliation, which had now become eternal; “it was not that, nor your name, nor your title that I wished: it was your love!”
The heart of the Prince seemed wrung in a vise as this word fell from those lips, once adored, nay, still adored, soiled as they were.
“My love!”
“Yes, your love, your love alone! I would have confessed all, been your mistress, your slave, your thing, if I—I had not feared to lose you, to see myself abased in the eyes of you, whom I adored! I was afraid, afraid of seeing you fly from me—yes, that was my crime! It is infamous, ah! I know it; but I thought only of keeping you, you alone; you, my admiration, my hero, my life, my god! I deserve to be punished; yes, yes, I deserve it—But those letters—those letters which you would have cast into the fire if I had not revealed the secret of my life—you told me so yourself—I might have sworn what you asked, and you would have believed me—I might have done so; but no, it would have been too vile, too cowardly! Ah! kill me! That is what I deserve, that is what—”
“Where are you going?” she cried, interrupting herself, her eyes dilated with fear, as she saw that Zilah, without answering, was moving toward the door.