'You are aware,' he replied, 'that Madame Brancka has been always envious of your cousin; always willing to hurt her. When she got possession of the story of my past she used it without mercy. She would have told my wife with brutality; I told her myself, hoping to spare her something by my own confession. Madame Brancka affirmed to me, twice or thrice over, that you had given her all the information against me.'
'How could you believe her? You had had my promise.'
'How could I doubt her?'
'It is natural you should know nothing of honour!' thought Vàsàrhely, but he did not utter what he thought. He saw that, dark as had been the crimes of Sabran against those of his race, the chastisement of them was as great.
He said simply:
'You might sooner have doubted anything than have believed that I should entrust the Countess Brancka with such a secret, and have given her such a power to injure my cousin. How can she have learned your history? Have you betrayed yourself?'
'Never! Since she had it not from you, I cannot conceive how or where she learned it. Not a soul lives that knows me as——'
He paused; he could not bring himself to say the name he bore from birth.
'My brother is unfortunate,! said Vàsàrhely, curtly. 'He has wedded a vile woman. Leave her to me.'
He saluted Sabran with cold but careful ceremony, and went, to his own apartments. Sabran passed to the corridor which led to his wife's rooms, and there resumed his miserable restless walk to and fro before her door. He dared not enter. In her conscious hours she had not asked for him. He had ever present before his eyes that movement of horror, of repulsion, with which she had drawn the hem of her gown from his grasp.