“It is true,” she went on. “He was disfigured--driven insane by the explosion; but he was not killed. He returned in his ship to Cherbourg, and there Basile received him of the surgeon and conveyed him to Paris. He was never heard of again. Basile brought to their father the news that Lucien was dead of his wounds and buried at sea. Monseigneur was old and childish, and Paris was far away. That was seven years ago; but it was only recently that, sure of my loyalty, and careless of the respect, of the right to which he had deprived me, he boasted to me of his ancient crime, justifying it, too, on the score that a reconstituted society must, to be effective, be pruned of all disease, moral and physical.” “He should have hanged himself. Such inhuman villainy! Mademoiselle Lambertine, you have every reason to hate this man.” “Ah! you think I colour the truth. My God, it is black enough! Why else, himself like a reckless madman, did he squander his double inheritance? He foresaw the redistribution of property; he was ever prophesying it. He must drink deeply of pleasure if he would empty the cup before flinging it into the melting-pot. Moreover, Lucien had been the old man’s favourite; and, ah! he hated him for that.” She stopped a moment, panting; then went on, her voice lower yet with hoarseness:-- “Say, at the best, it was remorse made him a spendthrift, and his conscience that salved itself with a lying pretext. Does that condone his perfidy to me? Yet, I swear that he so blinded my eyes and my heart that, while he was close to me I could not, despite his confession of wickedness, see him for the wretch he was. Now----” She came suddenly quite close up to the young man. “Edouard!” she whispered, in a voice so wooing that it seemed to stroke his cheek. He should have leapt away; but for the first time the fragrant sweet sensuousness of her presence bewitched him. She put her hands timidly up to his shoulders, and let her gaze melt into his. The motion of her bosom communicated to his heart a soft slow throbbing. In the pause that ensued, the voice of the old drunken debauchee sounded fitfully from the dining-room. “Now,” she murmured, “I see the truth stripped of all that passion that so falsely adorned it. I see it in you, as in myself, a generous principle that owes nothing to self-indulgence. Thou couldst use this in me, thou cold, beautiful man--thou couldst use me to such ends, and never fail of thy self-respect.” She slipped her hands a thought closer about his neck.