And so it was that he could not curse her for a harlot. She was dead, and Death is pure.... She was dead, and Death is meek and helpless; at the mercy of the smallest, most despicable, weakest thing that walks or crawls or flies.
Looking upon Henriette, you would never have guessed that here lay a wanton, stricken down at the height of a delirious orgy of forbidden pleasure. Rather you thought of a snow-white seagull, lying stiff and frozen on a stretch of sunset-dyed seashore, or a frail white butterfly, dead in the heart of a pink, overblown rose.
So the madness burned itself out in the brain of Dunoisse as he stood looking at her. The blood in his veins ran less like liquid fire, the cold sweat dried upon his skin, the roaring in his ears lessened—he could now control the twitching of his muscles that had ached with the desire to kill with naked hands a man abhorred—to batter out all semblance of its luring beauty from the white, white face against the rose-hued background. If the prone figure had given sign of life!—but its pallor as of snow—its rigidity and breathlessness remained unaltered. And presently, looking upon her, lying there; laughter and tears, love and anger, forever quenched in her; disarmed of her panoply of conquering gifts and graces by pitiless Death, a bitter spasm took him by the throat and a mist of tears came before his eyes. He trembled, and for lack of power to stand, sat down upon the foot of the sofa, near where the stiff little feet he had so often kissed peeped out beyond the border of her robe of lawn and laces. His haggard eyes were fixed upon the cold and speechless mouth. And in its rigid silence it was eloquent.
“Dear friend,” the dumb voice seemed to say ... “sweet friend, whose pleadings won me to deceive—and whom I have in turn deceived—the heroic virtue of Fidelity having no part in the pliable, silken web of my nature—listen to me, and be, not pardoning—but pitiful!...”
“God knows,” said Dunoisse sorrowfully, “how I pity you, Henriette!”
“Born with the fatal gift of maddening beauty—endowed with the deadly heritage of irresistible fascination,” went on the silent voice, “ask yourself how it was possible for your Henriette to pass through life untainted by the desires—unbranded by the scorching lusts of men? Be fair to me, dear friend. Question—and give answer.”
Dunoisse asked himself the question. There was but one reply.
“Look around,” said the voice, “and you will see my prototype in liberal Nature. The bird that builds too low; the rose that does not hang her clusters high enough; the fruit whose very ripeness calls the wasps to settle and feast. Yet who says to the bird, ‘Build higher! Another year you will not lose your eggs so!’ Does anyone bid the rose change her nature and lift her perfumed blossoms far out of reach of plundering hands? What if one cried to the peach, ‘Do not ripen, stay crude and sour because thus you will not tempt the yellow-and-black marauder.’ Would not the pious tell us that to expect Heaven-taught Nature to alter her ways at our bidding were to be guilty of mortal sin? Then, what of us Henriettes—born to yield and submit, give and grant and lavish? Are we much more to blame, do you think, than the bird, than the rose, than the peach?”
“Oh, my poor, frail, false love!” said Dunoisse, “how wise Death has made you!” For his bitter anger and resentment were vanishing as the silent voice talked on: