“Loving you in spite of myself,” she cried, beating upon the table with her hands. “I have tried to convince myself that it was not I, but the spirit of Matilde that had come to lodge in my treacherous body. I hated you for myself and I loved you for Matilde. She loved you to the end. She never hated you. That was it. The pure, deathless love of Matilde was constantly fighting against the hatred I bore for you. I believe as firmly as I believe that I am alive that she has been near me all the time, battling against my insane desire for vengeance. You have only to recall to yourself the moments when you were so vividly reminded of Matilde Valeska. At those times I am sure that something of Matilde was in me. I was not myself. You have looked into my eyes a thousand times with a question in your own. Your soul was striving to reach the soul of Matilde. Ah, all these months I have known that you love Matilde, not me. You loved Matilde that was in me. You------” “I have thought of her, always of her, when you were in my arms.” “I know how well you loved her,” she declared slowly. “I know that you went to her tomb long after her death was revealed to you. I know that years ago you made an effort to find Feverelli. You found his grave, too, and you could not ask him, man to man, if you had wronged her. But in spite of all that you brought up her boy to be sacrificed as------” “I--I--am I to believe you? If he should be my son!” he cried, starting up, cold with dread. “He is your son. He could be no other man's son. I have her dying word for it. She declared it in the presence of her God. Wait! Where are you going?” “I am going down to him!” “Not yet, James. I have still more to say to you, more to confess. Here! Take this package of letters. Read them as you sit beside his bed--not his death-bed, for I shall restore him to health, never fear. If he were to die I should curse myself to the end of time, for I and I alone would have been the cause. Here are her letters, and the one Feverelli wrote to her. This is her death-bed letter to you. And this is a letter to her son and yours. You may some day read it to him. And here--this is a document requiring me to share my fortune with her son. It is a pledge that I took before my father died a few years ago. If the boy ever appeared he was to have his mother's share of the estate, and it is not an inconsiderable amount, James. He is independent of you. He need ask nothing of you. I was taking him home to his own.” She shrank slightly as he stood over her. There was more of wonder and pity in his face than condemnation. She looked for the anger she had expected to arouse in him, and was dumbfounded to see that it was not revealed in his steady, appraising eyes. “Your plan deserved a better fate than this, Yv--Thérèse. It was prodigious! I--I can almost pity you.” “Have you no pain, no regret, no grief?” she cried weakly.