"When I married you, sir, I told you frankly my heart was not free; I have loved--passionately loved. What I then said, I now repeat: I do not love you with passion,--but, before God who hears me, I have never been unfaithful to you!" "Unfaithful to me!" exclaimed the prince; "that would be even commendable when compared with the crimes which you have committed." "I!" cried Paula, clasping her hands with animation; "why such calumny is as infamous as it is absurd!" "What! do you dare deny that yesterday evening----Ah! no never," exclaimed the prince, shuddering,--"never did machination more infernal emanate from human brain! I shook with fear as much as with surprise,--and you are not on your knees before me with supplicating hands, but stand as you are, calm and contemptuous--do you not know, madame, that there are judges and a scaffold?" Paula at this moment trembled; until then she had only suffered by the singularities of M. de Hansfeld, only in his displays of anger, or rather desperate griefs. He had reproached her vaguely, and her reproaches were half averted by her recollections, but never had he brought against her, until this moment, an accusation so decided and so terrible. The princess entirely believed that Arnold's reason wandered, whilst he mistook the princess's amazement for a tacit avowal, and said to her, in a voice more calm, but with profound and concentrated indignation,-- "You see, madame, that you must depart, not from regard to yourself, but from respect to my name; I shall be supposed to accompany you. I pass for a lunatic," he added, with a bitter smile, "and no one will be surprised at my sudden departure; I shall remain here under an assumed name. Except Madame de Lormoy, and a man who is known to her and came into her box, no one knows me, and thus this tale will be easily credited; besides, I go so little into the world; and in a month or two, before I leave Paris, perchance, to rejoin you in Bohemia, where you will go under the care of Franz, who has my instructions, then I will tell you my desires, if I do not write them to you. This evening you will go to the Opera; there they will spread the report of my sudden departure. It will be one whim more, which you can attribute to the aberration of my brain, you will be easily believed. You will depart in a close carriage, all my servants will follow you, and it will be readily credited that I have accompanied you. One word more: the contempt and execration with which you inspire me are such that I rely on your not believing that it is from clemency, but from respect for my name, that I do not here unveil to you all your crimes; but take heed, on the least hesitation on your part to obey me, whether here or elsewhere, I shall surmount my disgust, and give you up to vengeance divine and human." And the prince quitted the apartment.