"It is just as I expected," said Armand to himself, and these tears, instead of softening him, enervated him even to anger. He did not sympathise with this grief as he had sympathised with Alfred's, perhaps owing to that difference between the sexes which brings it to pass that a woman's grief is not always as intelligible to us as that of a fellow-man; at times, also, the feeling of cowardice that we feel when giving pain to a mistress so provokes us, by lowering us in our own eyes, as to exclude tenderness. He had risen, and was walking about the room, thinking to himself:
"Why not put an end to the whole thing at once?"
Then he added aloud:
"I really do not know what it is that makes you cry. In what I have said to you there was nothing that did not breathe the deepest affection for you."
How could she have failed to notice that already he no longer made use of the word "love."
"But since you require me to speak frankly to you, I will obey you. No; it is not only on your own account that I request this separation, but also on my own. There is now a barrier between us, Helen, that a man of honour cannot cross."
"What is it?" replied Helen, finding strength enough to raise her pale, tear-stained face.
"The unqualified trust of another man," he answered brusquely. "When Alfred came here, to this very spot, he did not speak to me of his jealousy only, he displayed such esteem and friendship towards me as I forbear from describing to you. He suspected me, and he came to me with open heart. There is no bitterness, no bitter sentiment in that heart, but beauty of feeling, straightforwardness and sincerity of friendship. No, Helen, I can deceive that man no longer. I should despise myself too much if I did."
"Well! and what of me?" she cried, rising in her turn. This praise of her husband by her lover completed her distraction, and anger was overtaking her. "Did I not trample upon all that, in order to come to you? Do you think that I was born for treachery and falsehood? Did you hesitate for one moment about asking me to deceive this honest man, this confiding friend, when you wished to have me? Ah! you are not ashamed of it on my account and you are on your own! I forbid you to speak of honour, and perjured faith, and betrayed friendship. You have no right to do so, seeing that it is upon yourself, upon yourself, understand, that it all recoils. Did you entreat me to be yours? Answer in your turn, yes or no?"
"Pardon me," returned Armand. "Let us go back to the facts. We loved each other. You were not a young girl so far as I know. I was not a youth. We were not making our first entry upon life—we were both persons of experience. Is that not so? We knew where we were going. I owed it to you not to compromise you. Did I speak of you to any living soul? I owed it to you not to disturb your peace? I am disturbing it and I withdraw. As to my conscience, permit me to be the sole judge of what it enjoins and what it forbids."