"I need mercy myself," she answered, sighing. "And I have had few temptations. How do I know what you have suffered?"
"Or done!" I said, almost rudely.
"Where a man has not lied, nor betrayed, nor sold himself or others," she answered firmly, but in a low tone, "I think I can forgive all else. I can better put up with force," she added, smiling sadly, "than with fraud."
Ah, Dieu! I turned away my face that she might not see how it paled, how I winced; that she might not guess how her words, meant in mercy, stabbed me to the heart. And yet, then, for the first time, while viewing in all its depth and width the gulf which separated us, I was not hardened; I was not cast back on myself. Her gentleness, her pity, her humility, softened me, while they convicted me. My God! How could I do that which I had come to do? How could I stab her in the tenderest part, how could I inflict on her that rending pang, how could I meet her eyes, and stand before her, a Caliban, a Judas, the vilest, lowest, basest thing she could conceive?
I stood, a moment, speechless and disordered; stunned by her words, by my thoughts--as I have seen a man stand when he has lost his all, his last, at the tables. Then I turned to her; and for an instant I thought that my tale was told already. I thought that she had pierced my disguise, for her face was aghast, stricken with sudden fear. Then I saw that she was not looking at me, but beyond me, and I turned quickly and saw a servant hurrying from the house to us. It was Louis. His face, it was, had frightened her. His eyes were staring, his hair waved, his cheeks were flabby with dismay. He breathed as if he had been running.
"What is it?" Mademoiselle cried, while he was still some way off. "Speak, man. My sister? Is she--"
"Clon," he gasped.
The name changed her to stone. "Clon?" she muttered. "What of him?"
"In the village!" Louis panted, his tongue stuttering with terror. "They are flogging him! They are killing him, Mademoiselle! To make him tell!"
Mademoiselle grasped the sundial and leant against it, her face colourless, and, for an instant, I thought that she was fainting. "Tell?" I said mechanically. "But he cannot tell. He is dumb, man."