"Do not speak harshly to me," she replied, still more softly. "But why should you speak to me otherwise?" she added, in a melancholy tone; "I cannot justify myself in your eyes. Yet reflect that had I not clung, as I did, to the beauty of the feeling which united us, I should not have been sincere with you as I was. Alas! it was because I loved you as I love you still, as I shall always love you." "Do not employ the word 'love,'" returned Hubert; "you have no longer the right to do so." "Ah!" she replied, with growing excitement; "you cannot prevent me from feeling. Yes, Hubert, I love you; and if I can no longer hope that my love is shared, it is none the less living here;" and she struck her bosom. "And you must know it," she continued. "My only comfort in the most utter unhappiness will be the thought that I have been able to tell you one last time what I have so often told you in happy days: I love you. Do not see in this a dream of forgiveness; I shall not seek to move you, and you will never condemn me as much as I condemn myself. But it is none the less true that I love you more than ever." "Well!" replied Hubert, "this love will be the only vengeance that I wish to exact from you. Know then that you have caused this man whom you love to endure a martyrdom such as may scarcely be survived; you have rent his heart, you have been his tormentor, the tormentor of every hour and every minute. There is nothing more within me but a wound, and it is you, you who have opened it. I have ceased to believe anything, hope for anything, love anything, and _you_ are the cause. And this will last for a long time, a long time, and every morning and every evening you will have to say to yourself: 'He whom I love is in his throes, and I am killing him.'" And so he went on relieving his soul of the sorrow of so many days with all the cruel words with which his anger supplied him for the woman who was listening to him with downcast eyelids, disconcerted face, and frightful paleness, in the shadow wherein resounded the voice that was terrible in her ears. Was he not, merely by obeying his passion, inflicting upon her the most torturing of punishments, that of bleeding in her presence from a wound which she had dealt him and which she was unable to cure. "Strike me," she replied simply, "I have deserved all." "These are useless words," said Hubert, after a fresh silence, during which time he had been walking from one end of the room to the other to exhaust his passion, "Let us come to deeds. This interview must at least have a practical conclusion. We shall see each other again in society and at your house. Need I tell you that I shall act as an honourable man, and that no one shall suspect anything of what has passed between us? There remains the matter of these rooms. I shall write to Emmanuel Deroy to let him know that I shall come here no more. It is useless for us to meet here again, is it not? We have nothing more to say to each other."