"And in six months," replied Helen, "will your conscience be more accommodating? Come, be logical and frank. It is not a momentary separation that you want but a rupture. Let me at least hear you say as much since you desire people to esteem you."
"Yes," replied the young man brutally, exasperated by the revolt of a woman usually so gentle and submissive.
"So you thought that you were free from all duty towards me?" she continued. "You were leaving me all alone in that way. You were going away. You would have written me five or six letters, and then that would have been the end. You would have uttered these fine phrases to yourself: 'We knew where we were going.' 'She was not a young girl.' 'We were both persons of experience.' I should be curious to know," she added with that mournful irony which is imparted by rising frenzy, "just what you understand by that."
"What would be the use?" he said.
"I want to know," she returned vehemently. "I have a good right to know at least what you think of me."
"Do you believe that I am not acquainted with your life?"
"With my life," Helen questioned, crushed by a kind of stupor, which the young man took for terror at this sudden revelation.
"Do you wish for facts?" he returned harshly. "Well, you shall have them. Have you forgotten your intrigue with Monsieur de Varades!"
"Ah!" she cried, "nay, that is infamous. Monsieur de Varades!" And she passed her hands wildly across her forehead. "Tell me that you did not believe that, I entreat you. My love, tell me that you did not think that of me. Oh! tell me, tell me, tell me!"
"I did believe it," he replied, his heart closed to the wail of his mistress by that keen, insidious jealousy of the past which, by a strange anomaly of his nature, had always caused him some pain when by her side, although he did not love her.