"You are unjust, Olivier," she said, "very unjust. But you do not know all--you cannot know.--You saw that I did not try to contradict you when you reproached me, that I did not try to brave it out. I was not the proud woman with whom you fought so often in years gone by.--I seem to have no pride left! How could I have when I see, as I listen to you, what I was, what I should be still had I not met Pierre, and without the love that has taken possession of my soul like an honored guest?--When I told you that I at first thought only of making him love me to avenge myself upon you, I told you the truth. You ought to believe me when I tell you that the mere idea now fills me with the same horror that you feel.--When I got to know him, when I realized the beauty, the nobility, the purity of his nature, all the virtues that you have just been speaking of, I awoke to the sense of the infamy I was going to commit. You are quite right, I should have been a monster if I had been able to deceive a soul so youthful, so innocent, so lovable, so true! But I have not been such a monster.--I had not talked with Pierre more than twice when I had utterly renounced all idea of such a frightful revenge, when he had won my love entire. I loved him! I love him!--Do you think that I have not said, that I do not say every day, every hour, to myself all that you have just spoken? Do you think I have not felt it ever since I knew what my sentiments were for him? I loved him, and he was your friend, your brother. I have been your mistress, and I knew that a time must come when you would meet again, when he would speak to you of me--a time when he would perhaps know all. Do you think I did not dread that a time would come when I should see you again and you would speak to me as you have just been speaking?--Oh, it is horrible, agonizing!" She dropped Olivier's arm and pressed her clenched hands upon her eyes with a movement of physical anguish. It was in her being that she suffered, in the body once abandoned completely to the man who heard her, as she continued:-- "But pardon me. I do not concern you. It is not what I have suffered that we have to think of, but of him.--You cannot doubt now that I love him with all there is in me that is noble, good, and true. You also must have realized how he loves me with all the wealth of affection that you know so well. All this week while he was speaking to me I saw you--with what agony!--I felt that you were laying bare our secret hour by hour.--Now you know that secret. Pierre loves me as I love him, with an absolute, unique, passionate love.--And now, if you choose, go and tell him that I was once your mistress. I will not defend myself any more than I did a few minutes ago. I have not strength enough to lie to him. The day he asks me, 'Is it true that Olivier has been your lover?' I shall reply, 'It is true!'--But it is not I alone whom you will have killed!"