"Explain yourself more clearly," said Gontram, deadly pale.
"Gontram, I love you, love you tenderly, and if ever there was a pure love, it is mine for you. Before I made your acquaintance I went carelessly through life. Good and bad were unknown meanings to me, and I did not know what blushing was."
Carmen sank exhausted in a chair and burst into tears.
"Carmen, why do you cry?"
"Gontram, these tears are for me—for my lost youth—my tainted soul," whispered Carmen. "Oh, Gontram, I am not what I appear to be. I am not the daughter but the friend of Monsieur de Larsagny!"
Gontram uttered a wild cry, and, beating his face with his hands, he gasped for air; the shot had struck him to the heart.
"Yes, it is the truth," continued Carmen; "I am the friend of an old man. Ah, Gontram, how have I struggled with myself before I found courage enough to inform you of this."
Carmen had fallen to the floor. Clutching Gontram's knee she wept bitterly.
Gontram felt deep pity for her. He placed his hand on her hair, and gently said:
"Carmen, the confession I have just heard has shocked me very much; but, at the same time, it has also pleased me. That you did not wish to hear me, before you told me your story, raises you in my estimation, and let him who is without sin cast the first stone!"