She had hurled forth these words in a panting voice, drawing closer to Armand as she went on in a convulsion of frenzy, and in the tone of her voice, in her looks, in the whole of her agitated person, there was that levelling power of truth against which doubt in vain tries to stand. The kind of frightful, dishonouring proof of her former purity resting upon the cynical avowal of her present infamy became irrefutable through the evident exaltation which possessed her and which did not suffer her to conceal anything in her thoughts. But what rendered this reasoning still more decisive to the man listening to the miserable confession with a blending of astonishment and terror, was the sudden crisis of emotion wrought in her after she had spoken. Passion, sated by this frantic utterance, suddenly gave way to despair. All at once she looked at Armand with eyes in which the flush of indignation was drowned in tears, and uttering a shriek she sank upon the floor. There, stretched at length, she began to moan. It was a slow, continuous sob, the dull, uniform wail of a dying creature. It came up, up to Armand, and this supreme wail gathered into itself the echoes of all the wails that she had stifled, of all the sighs that had been checked on the margin of her heart. It was the throes of many days breathed forth in a last appeal. If on coming into contact with Alfred's distress, Armand had experienced an irresistible feeling of sorrowful humanity, how much the more and with how much greater power was he visited with this feeling now, on coming into contact with the distress of the woman lying thus on the ground? The frail and potent tie which had united him to this vanquished being, the unconquerable tie of mutual voluptuousness, suddenly bound him to her anew. He believed that he had forgotten her, and here, beneath the two-fold influence of unconscious jealousy and physical pity, he was again finding within himself feelings of which he had deemed himself no longer capable. A passionate impulse prompted him to fling himself upon his knees, and he strove to raise her as though she had been his mistress still. "Helen," he said, "recover yourself. In pity to me do not weep in this way. Stand up." She obeyed, and slowly turned towards him her swimming eyes and parted lips. An expression of unspeakable gratitude passed across her mournful countenance. He seated her in an arm-chair, placing himself at her feet to wipe away her tears. Then she was able to speak again.