Still mystified, but with an awful suspicion growing in his mind, St. Just replied, "Nay, Halima, I cannot leave you thus. If, as you say, you blame me not, I have a right to an explanation of your strange words—words that have stirred me more than any I have ever heard. After you have told me all that they portend, it will be time for my decision."
"You will not spare me, then," she said, "the shame of my disclosure? Oh! you are cruel, Henri." Then, after a momentary pause and with a sigh of resignation, she went on, "But, perhaps, 'tis better so; for, when you have heard the confession I have to make, you will no longer seek to stay."
Gradually, while she had been speaking, he had withdrawn himself from her side, and now, with a look of expectant horror in his face, he took a seat that faced her.
"Then listen," she resumed. "Some months after you had gone, they told me you were dead. It was General Buonaparte who first brought the news to me. I had seen him many times since your departure, and he had professed to love me; but, despite all his pressing, I remained true to you. I told him that my heart whispered to me that you still lived, and that nothing but the evidence of eye-witnesses would make me think otherwise. A month later he brought two men of my father's tribe, who said that they had seen you slain, shot by my father's orders. My grief was terrible, but how could I decline such evidence? And you must remember that, all this time, I had received no single word from you. Then——"
"It was impossible for me to send to you," he interjected; "I was stretched upon a bed of sickness, where I lay for months. I had like to have died, but for your father's help."
"I know; I understand all now; Oh! that I had known before. How cruel has been Fate to me."
She paused again, and the frightened look she wore became intensified.
"And then?" asked St. Just sternly.
"And then," she panted in a tone so low that he had to strain his ears to catch her words, "believing that you still lived, I had allowed General Buonaparte to think—in order that I might stave off his importunities—that, were I assured that you were dead, I would assent to his wishes, and become his. My love had died with you, and I resolved to live for ambition, and thought I saw the way through him to its gratification. Then, at the moment when I was almost distraught with grief, he reminded me of my promise, offered me his love as consolation for my loss of you. He promised to take me with him to Paris, a city he knew I longed to see, and drew such glowing pictures of my life there, that he lulled my scruples. Then, taking advantage of my weakness, he—and—and—I—became—his mistress!"
The last word was uttered in a whisper, but it penetrated to her hearer's ear. The blood rushed to her neck and face, with the shame of her confession, and she hung her head, not daring to raise her eyes to his.