"I was still so under her influence that I hesitated for a moment whether to mistrust the voice in my heart, or this serpent look. She had risen, and was standing at the window, her face turned away and her hand before her eyes, such a picture of insulted majesty and innocence that I already began to curse my heat, and to accuse myself of having done the greatest injustice and wrong that can be done to a helpless woman. But just as I was on the point of going up to her and trying the power of kind words, I heard my dog give a strange sort of a growl and bark, as if he were angry and provoked; for which I could see no reason. He did not like the woman. Either she had never known how, or else she had never thought it worth while, to gain his favor. But heretofore he had seemed to feel the greatest indifference toward her, and I could not understand why her offended speech and bearing should now enrage him. The truth is he was not paying the slightest attention to her, but seemed to have been excited by something that he had dragged out of the pile of things she had taken from her trunk. I called out to him to lie down and keep quiet; he was still in a moment; but, wagging his tail violently, he ran up to me, holding something in his mouth which he laid on my knee. It was a man's glove. "Can you believe it?--my first feeling at the sight of this evidence was a wild joy and satisfaction. I was suddenly at one with myself again, and the wretched feeling of shame that perhaps after all I had let my suspicious heat get the better of my reason, gave place to an icy calmness. "'If you would only turn round,' I said, 'perhaps you would speak in a different tone. Without knowing it or wishing it, you have brought me a present from your journey for which I ought to thank you.' "As she turned round, even she was not actress enough to repress a gesture of terror. "'I swear to you--she stammered, pale as death. "'Very good,' I said; 'that is precisely what I have been asking you to do. But--do you hear?--consider well what you swear and by what you swear it. By the life of the innocent creature lying in that chamber, by that God who visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation--' "'I don't know what you mean--I--I have done no wrong and have no need to swear. This glove, Heaven knows--' "'Heaven does know!' I shrieked, my smouldering rage breaking out furiously. "I reached out my hand toward her; everything reeled before my eyes; I have no further recollection of what I said and did at that moment, except that I was very near seizing her by her long locks, as in my dream, and dragging her across the room and down the stairs, and casting her out into the street. I am sure, however, that I did not touch her, but my looks and words must have been so relentless and unmistakable that she herself found it advisable to leave me. Half an hour later I was alone again with my child.