Ralph experienced a sensation of profound pride. For the first time he was conscious of exercising a real ascendancy over others, and of the extraordinary power with which he imposed his decisions on them. Truly the Countess was not in complete command of her usual resources. The supposed murder of Bridget Rousselin had to a considerable degree undermined her power of resistance, and the spectacle of the trussed-up Leonard added to her nervous distress. But how swiftly he had seized his opportunity and profited by his advantage to establish by threats and terrorizing, by force and cunning, his definite victory! Now, he was the master. He had forced Josephine Balsamo to surrender and at the same time disciplined his own love. Kisses, caresses, seductive wiles, the enchantment of passion, the obsession of desire, he no longer feared any of them, since he had gone to the very verge of a rupture. He picked up the rug which lay in front of the fireplace and rendered Leonard deaf by throwing it over him. Then he went back to Josine and sat down facing her. “Fire away,” he said. “Since you will have it,” she said in a tone of resignation, “we’ll go straight through with it and make an end of it as quickly as possible. I’ll spare you the details and come to the main facts straight away. It won’t take long, and it won’t be complicated. Two and twenty years ago then, during the months which preceded the Franco-Prussian war, Cardinal de Bonnechose, Archbishop of Rouen and senator, making a confirmation tour through the Caux country, was caught in a terrible storm and had to take shelter in the Château de Gueures, which was at that time inhabited by its last owner, the Chevalier des Aubes. He dined there. That night, as he was about to go to the bedroom they had got ready for him, the Chevalier des Aubes, an old man of nearly eighty, decrepit, but in full possession of his faculties, asked for a private interview with him. This was at once granted and lasted a long time. Here is a resumé of the revelations to which the cardinal listened, a resumé which he himself drew up later, of which I shall not change a single word. I know it by heart: “‘Monseigneur,’ the chevalier began, ‘I shall not astonish you by saying that my early years were spent in the middle of the great revolutionary tumult. At the time of the Terror I was twelve years old. I was an orphan, and every day I accompanied my aunt des Aubes to the neighboring prison, where she distributed the little money she could spare and tended the sick. They imprisoned all kinds of unfortunates and tried and condemned them as the fancy took them. So it came about that I saw a good deal of a gentleman whose name no one knew, or why he had been arrested, or who had denounced him. The attentions I paid him and my piety won his confidence. He grew fond of me, and on the evening of the day on which he had been tried and condemned, he said to me: