I expected this and had my answer ready. ‘I am not aware, Madame,’ I said, ‘that I have cause to reproach myself. But, however that may be, I trust you have summoned me for some better purpose than to chide me for another’s fault; though it was my voice which brought it to light.’ ‘Why did you shame me publicly?’ she retorted, thrusting her handkerchief to her lips and withdrawing it again with a passionate gesture. ‘Madame,’ I answered patiently--I was full of pity for her, ‘consider for a moment the wrong your husband did me and how small and inadequate was the thing I did to him in return.’ ‘To him!’ she ejaculated so fiercely that I started. ‘It was to me--to me you did it! What had I done that you should expose me to the ridicule of those who know no pity, and the anger of one as merciless? What had I done, sir?’ I shook my head sorrowfully. ‘So far, madame,’ I answered, ‘I allow I owe you reparation, and I will make it should it ever be in my power. Nay, I will say more,’ I continued, for the tone in which she spoke had wrung my heart. ‘In one point I strained the case against your husband. To the best of my belief he abducted the lady who was in my charge, not for the love of her, but for political reasons, and as the agent of another.’ She gasped. ‘What?’ she cried. ‘Say that again!’ As I complied she tore off her mask and gazed into my face with straining eyes and parted lips. I saw then how much she was changed, even in these few days--how pale and worn were her cheeks, how dark the circles round her eyes. ‘Will you swear to it?’ she said at last, speaking with uncontrollable eagerness, while she laid a hand which shook with excitement on my arm. Will you swear to it, sir?’ ‘It is true,’ I answered steadfastly. I might have added that after the event her husband had so treated mademoiselle as to lead her to fear the worst. But I refrained, feeling that it was no part of my duty to come between husband and wife. She clasped her hands, and for a moment looked passionately upwards, as though she were giving thanks to Heaven; while the flesh of health and loveliness which I had so much admired returned, and illumined her face in a wonderful manner. She seemed, in truth and for the moment, transformed. Her blue eyes filled with tears, her lips moved; nor have I ever seen anything bear so near a resemblance to those pictures of the Virgin Mary which Romans worship as madame did then. The change, however, was as evanescent as it was admirable. In an instant she seemed to collapse. She struck her hands to her face and moaned, and I saw tears, which she vainly strove to restrain, dropping through her fingers. ‘Too late!’ she murmured, in a tone of anguish which wrung my heart. ‘Alas, you robbed me of one man, you give me back another. I know him now for what he is. If he did not love her then, he does now. It is too late!’