“That man was he who had pursued me during a whole year, who had vowed my dishonour, and who, by the first words that issued from his mouth, gave me to understand he had accomplished it the preceding night.”

“The scoundrel!” murmured Felton.

“Oh yes, the scoundrel!” cried milady, seeing the interest which the young officer, whose soul seemed to hang on her lips, took in her strange story—“oh yes, the scoundrel! He believed that, by having triumphed over me in my sleep, all was completed. He came, hoping that I should accept my shame, since my shame was consummated. He came to offer his fortune in exchange for my love.

“Alas! my desperate resistance could not last long. I felt my strength fail, and this time it was not my sleep that enabled the scoundrel to prevail, but my swooning.”

Felton listened without making any sound but a kind of suppressed roar. Only the sweat streamed down his marble brow, and his hand, under his coat, tore his breast.

“My first impulse on coming to myself was to feel under my pillow for the knife I had not been able to reach. If it had not come into play for defence, it might at least serve in expiation.

“‘Ah, ha!’ cried he, seizing my arm, and wresting from me the weapon, ‘you want to take my life, do you, my pretty Puritan? But this is more than dislike, this is ingratitude! Come, come, calm yourself, my sweet girl! I thought you were become kinder. I am not one of those tyrants who detain women by force. You don’t love me. With my usual fatuity, I doubted it; now I am convinced. To-morrow you shall be free.’

“I had but one wish, and that was that he should kill me.

“‘Beware!’ said I, ‘for my liberty is your dishonour.’

“‘Explain yourself, my pretty sibyl.’

“‘Yes; for no sooner shall I have left this place than I will tell everything. I will proclaim the violence you have used toward me. I will describe my captivity. I will denounce this palace of infamy. You are placed very high, my lord, but tremble! Above you there is the king. Above the king there is God.’

“Perfect master as he seemed over himself, my persecutor allowed a movement of anger to escape him. I could not see the expression of his face, but I felt the arm on which my hand was placed tremble.

“‘Then you shall not go from here,’ said he.

“At these words he retired. I heard the door open and shut, and I remained overwhelmed, yet less, I confess, by my grief than by the shame of not having avenged myself.”