"Then—it's a mistake, isn't it?—Confess it, you've made a mistake."
She implored him with all the distress that filled her being, as though she were hoping to make him yield. He fixed his eyes again on the accursed portrait, over his wife's shoulder, and shivered from head to foot:
"Oh, it is she!" he declared, clenching his fists. "It is she—I recognize her—it is the woman who killed my——"
A shock of protest ran through her body; and, beating her breast, she cried:
"My mother! My mother a murderess! My mother, whom my father used to worship and went on worshiping! My mother, who used to hold me on her knee and kiss me!—I have forgotten everything about her except that, her kisses and her caresses! And you tell me that she is a murderess!"
"It is true."
"Oh, Paul, you must not say anything so horrible! How can you be positive, such a long time after? You were only a child; and you saw so little of the woman . . . hardly a few minutes . . ."
"I saw more of her than it seems humanly possible to see," exclaimed Paul, loudly. "From the moment of the murder her image never left my sight. I have tried to shake it off at times, as one tries to shake off a nightmare; but I could not. And the image is there, hanging on the wall. As sure as I live, it is there; I know it as I should know your image after twenty years. It is she . . . why, look, on her breast, that brooch set in a gold snake! . . . a cameo, as I told you, and the snake's eyes . . . two rubies! . . . and the black lace scarf around the shoulders! It's she, I tell you, it's the woman I saw!"
A growing rage excited him to frenzy; and he shook his fist at the portrait of Hermine d'Andeville.
"Hush!" cried Élisabeth, under the torment of his words. "Hold your tongue! I won't allow you to . . ."