“Oh, Delaval! my love!—my love! don’t despise me! don’t loathe me! Have you no pity for me?—one word!”
But he spurns her from him with a rough gesture, and rising, she stands a little apart.
“No!” he says, in a hard, metallic tone, “I have no word for you—not one! If there are things I hate, they are lies and deceit. If there is a thing I never forgive, it is being made a fool of. Thank Heaven you have told me now who you are. What you are, I do not care to know! Under the mask of youth and guilelessness you had nearly made me your slave, you had fired the train that was to bring me to everlasting shame and disgrace. Oh! I could kill myself for my cursed folly, my credulity, my utter blindness! But I am saved!—saved from being a dupe to a base woman, who scruples at nothing, not even the ruin of her sister’s home and life, just to salve a paltry wound to her vanity, to hold in her chains a man who had set her aside long ago, knowing her to be—what she is!”
Clear and cutting, like a knife, his words fall on the shady, luxurious, silent room.
Silent for one moment only, while he goes towards the door without one backward glance.
Before he reaches it, however, a sharp click breaks the silence and Lord Delaval falls across the threshold——
Shot!
Gabrielle Beranger stoops down and gazes at the face of the man who has insulted her, then she kisses his lips, and, closing the door after her, steals noiselessly away.
* * * * *
The stars cluster thickly in the clear sky, and lights twinkle at each other across the broad bosom of the Seine, when a woman comes slowly and, pausing, looks down on the shimmering water.