"Speak, butcher's grandson!"
He withdrew a step to allow Germain to face Cyrène.
The condemned man fell upon his knees and broke into sobs.
"Speak, housekeeper's son!" the Admiral cried exultantly.
"You are a devil!" screamed Cyrène to him, and bent down her arms to Germain.
To her bitter surprise the latter shrank back, and seizing her hand covered it with kisses instead.
"No," he sobbed, "no, Madame Baroness; it is all true—I am not your equal. I am baseborn, an impostor, an adventurer, the son of the peasant and the servant, the grandson of the butcher. I am no de Lincy nor Répentigny. My titles were false, my credit stolen, my position came to me by accident, and my defence was one long falsehood. De Léry was right. In him I wronged a man of honour, and my retribution is the judgment of God. Forgive me all the awful wrong I have done you. Forgive me as a creature whose only excuse has been an irresistible worship of even your footsteps."
"Stop!" the Admiral cried. "Citizeness, ponder your treatment by this varlet, who has deceived you, besmirched your life, and contaminated your hand. Another career is yours; leave him to his punishment."
The words of the two men reached her, but their meaning was not credible. Her lover—her Germain, her knight—a deceiver, an impostor? She could not realise it. Then the truth of the scene rushed over her; its logic became inescapable.
"Oh," she wailed in one long, agonised moan, sobbing and writhing in the intensity of her torture, "how can I bear this?"