This calm and noble language only irritated me the more, as it made me ashamed of my conduct. Could I dare to tell her that it was only my miserable, incurable spirit of doubt, only the vague recollection of a slanderous story, only the spite I felt at not succeeding as soon as I hoped with Madame de V----, that had provoked my brutal and insolent words? Thus I was too proud to admit that I had acted like a crazy man, and continued to be cruel and unjust,--or, rather, fiendishly spiteful. "Madame," said I, in a lofty way, "I am not called on to explain my convictions; they are quite sufficient for me, and I shall stick to them." "But they are not sufficient for me! Some one has told you lies about me, and I wish to justify myself!" "No one has told any lies. I believe what I have to believe." "He believes! Great God, he believes! You are not ashamed to believe that I have ever spoken to another as I have to you? And you dare to believe that I am so vile, so cowardly, so base, as to spend my whole life in a continual series of falsehoods, that infamy has become a matter of habit?" "There is neither infamy nor cowardice, neither baseness nor falsehood; you have made a great many men happy, none can know how happy better than I. You have related to me a lovely story of conjugal fidelity, which even survived the dear departed one, exactly like the widows in Malabar. "This souvenir of the dear absent one, who was adored, fêted, caressed, as though he were still living, was a rather free translation of your life which was so amorously spent. It was a very clever plan you laid to entrap me into the belief that I was the only one. I replied to your wiles by a trick of my own, which was simply to pretend that I was your fool, and did not see through your schemes; besides, I was supposed to be the first to triumph over the poor dear marquis,--not a very flattering contest,--with a dead man--" "How dare you!" cried out Marguerite, interrupting me, and standing erect, majestic, almost menacing, her eyes flashing, and her cheeks blazing with indignation. Then leaning suddenly on a console, she said, in a low voice, as though crushed by remorse: "I have deserved this, I have deserved it all. Suffer, miserable woman; who will ever pity you now?" In the midst of the tumultuous waves of hate and anger that were surging in my breast, I was seized with the deepest sense of pity and terror; perhaps I should then have returned to my senses and listened to the voice of reason, when Marguerite, having wiped away her tears, said, in a solemn voice: "For the last time, monsieur, do you believe in a single one of the scandalous stories you have heard about me? Take time to answer, for your answer will decide my destiny and your own!" This threatening tone drove me perfectly wild. I became almost crazy,--the puppet of an insane fury. Going close up to Marguerite, I said, as I held her by the waist: