"Then, one fatal day, I met you, and I loved you. Oh! how I loved you! loved you so that I flung duty to the winds and betrayed my trust. I blame you not for this; you were absolutely innocent, and you used no perfidy to ensnare me. The fault was wholly mine. My love for you was irresistible; for it, I forsook the colors of my country. And I was happy in your love.
"For all that, although you were at first guiltless, my disgrace and ruin are due to you. I could easily have made my peace with Buonaparte, explained that I had been captured, and he would have forgiven me. My advancement would have been rapid, in those stirring times; I might have kept both love and honor. But you used my passion for my ruin; you forced me to choose between the two, and I, in my infatuation, chose love. And all to satisfy your devilish craving for revenge; and revenge for what? For what you deemed a grievous wrong; but what, in the light of your after conduct as a wife—for you have wronged me far more than he wronged you, and in the same way too—you should have considered but a venial error, born of impulse. From year to year you pursued Napoleon with persistent hatred, and, though your machinations had no actual consequence, yet the will to harm him never flagged. To gratify your vengeful cravings, you played upon my love; and I, poor, weak, loving fool, allowed it, and let you use me as you would, for the furtherance of your schemes. And, after all, I did not get that for which I had staked my honor. You know how little of your society I have had all these years. While you were leading a life of luxury, lavishing your smiles and meretricious charms on other men, I was scouring the continent on your wicked errands, a traitor to my country, engaged in petty trickery, at times suffering the greatest hardships, always in peril of my life and liberty. Twice I underwent imprisonment, with the fear of death before my eyes, and several times was wounded. And, for all that my hardships were for love of you, yet you did not trust me, but set your spies on me, and sent me on fool's errands, and baffled me when I had my own ends to serve. Time after time I appealed to you; you saw how I was suffering from the disgrace of my position, but nothing moved you; you remained resolute and implacable; unless I worked your will, I should not retain your love. Your love! You never loved me; it was but the lust of passion, or you would not have used me thus. You made of me your tool, your hireling, nay, your abject slave."
"I did, I did," she murmured. "I confess it all. I was mad with hatred, and it so possessed me that I scarce knew what I did. But I will devote my life to you henceforth. I will do my utmost to make up for it, and will live only to do your will. I will be your slave now. Oh! Henri! forgive me and take me to your heart again!"
She loosened her hands from his knees, and clasped them together and knelt before him, abject in her abandonment, and gazed up at him imploringly.
But her grief, her piteous appeal had no effect on him. The recollection of all she had made him suffer had bereft him of compassion. His love had died away. Gradually it had waned, and it was his many absences from her side—her own doing—that had caused it; by slow degrees he had learned to do without her; at first with torture, then, with indifference, and finally with relief; and her act of two hours before had brushed away the last vestige of his love. It was gone forever; contempt and hatred had usurped its place.
"Never," he answered, "I have done with you for ever. Take your fatal beauty to another market. At last I am free from its enslavement. You deserve that I should strike you dead for all that you have made me suffer; but you are not worth that a man should jeopardize his life to punish you.
"Go, while I can control myself, for I would not have your murder on my soul. But never see my face again, if you place any value on your life; for, in such a case, I will not answer for your safety."
But his last words were inaudible to the wretched woman at his feet; for, before he had finished speaking, she had swooned away.
Even then there was no relenting on his part; no thought of the many hours when she had lain in his embrace, of the countless kisses they had interchanged, of the words of love that each had whispered in the other's ear. He looked down upon her sternly, not a gleam of pity in his eye.
"Hola! there, without," he called. The two men came in.