“Poor fool! Why should you blush for things which no human eye ever saw?” “God sees what men do not see.” “God, weak woman! You are not worthy to deceive your husband, for he is less credulous than you.” “Your insults to my remorse are scarcely generous, Musdœmon.” “Well, if you feel remorse, Elphega, why insult it yourself by daily committing fresh crimes?” The Countess d’Ahlefeld hid her face in her hands; the messenger continued: “Elphega, you must choose: remorse and more crimes, or crime and no more remorse. Do as I do: choose the second course; it is better--at least it is more cheerful.” “Heaven grant,” said the countess, in low tones, “that those words may not be counted against you in eternity.” “Come, my dear, a truce to jest.” Then Musdœmon, seating himself behind the countess, and putting his arm about her neck, added: “Elphega, try to be, at least in imagination, what you were twenty years ago.” The unfortunate countess, the slave of her accomplice, strove to respond to his loathsome caresses. There was something too revolting, even for these degraded souls, in this adulterous embrace of two beings who scorned and despised each other. The illegal caresses which had once delighted them, and which some horrible and unknown expediency compelled them still to lavish upon each other, now tortured them. Strange but just change of guilty affections! Their crime had become their punishment. The countess, to cut short this guilty torment, at last asked her odious lover, tearing herself from his arms, with what verbal message her husband had charged him. “D’Ahlefeld,” said Musdœmon, “just as he was about to see his power confirmed by the marriage of Ordener Guldenlew to our daughter--” “Our daughter!” exclaimed the haughty countess; and she fixed her eye on Musdœmon with a look of pride and contempt.