It was then that Hubert had seen her sobbing despairingly, and an immense sadness had come upon her, a death-like torpor, crossed by a cruel anxiety lest some indiscreet speech should reach her lover and awake his suspicions. Her own reputation she heeded but little; she was well aware that after acting as she did with La Croix-Firmin, she could count on little but contempt and hatred from him. She also knew what the honour of those men who make it their profession to have women is worth. What tortured her, however, was not a fear lest he might compromise her personal security by speaking. After all, what had she, childless, and rich with an independent fortune, to dread from her husband? But a look of distrust in Hubert's eyes was what she felt to be beyond her powers of endurance. Perhaps, nevertheless, it might be better that he should know the frightful truth? He would drive her from him like an unfortunate; but at times anything seemed preferable to the torment of having such remorse at her heart, and of lying ceaselessly to so noble a fellow. She had again set herself to love him with desperate frenzy, and, as her revolt against the baser part of her nature hurried her to an extreme in the other or romantic direction, a mad desire came upon her to tell him everything, that at least the voluntary humiliation of her confession might be, as it were, a ransom for her infamy. And yet, although silence was a very lie, this lie she had still the strength to sustain; but, as for an actual lie, she suffered too much to have the shameful energy for it, if ever he questioned her. And this questioning she was now about to face; she could read it between the lines of the despatch. Ah! what was she now to do, if she had guessed aright? She had drunk as much of the gall of shame as she could bear. Would she have heart enough still to drink this, the bitterest drop, and once more betray her only love by a fresh deception? If she were frank Hubert must at least esteem her for her frankness, and if she were not how could she endure herself? Yes, but to speak was the death of her happiness. Alas! had not this been dead ever since her return? Would she ever recover what she had once felt? What was the use of disputing with fate for this mutilated, sullied remnant of a divine dream? And all that night she was bowed beneath the agony of these thoughts, a poor creature born for all the nobility of a single and faithful love, who had caught a glimpse of her dream and had possessed it, to be then dispossessed of it by the fault of a nature hidden within her, but which, nevertheless, was not her entire self. CHAPTER IX