"It was my misfortune to hesitate in turns amongst so many conflicting facts. It would have been less distressing for me to have believed Paula completely guilty or completely innocent; but, on the contrary, by an inconceivable mobility of impression, I passed in turns from passionate love to fits of anger and horror. My agonies at Trieste were nothing in comparison with the torture I then endured. A head more weak than mine would not have resisted these shocks. Sometimes, after having testified to my wife, by some incoherent word, the terror with which she inspired me, reflecting that, in spite of frightful appearances, I had no real certainty, and might be perhaps deceived, I sobbed bitterly and implored her pardon. In the end she believed my senses were wandering. What shall I tell you? At first I found a bitter satisfaction in lending myself to this report, then in increasing and giving credibility to it by studied whims. This was not all; as soon as they believed me liable to fits of lunacy, I was enabled by this plea to give way to my mistrust, whilst my precaution being attributed to my derangement, my wife was in no way compromised. Sometimes believing my life threatened, I shut myself up alone for whole days, only eating bread and fruit which my faithful Frantz bought for me himself, and at other times, in my excessive terror I did not dare even to touch these simple aliments. At other times, I blushed at my alarm, and was convinced of Paula's innocence, and then returned to her with the most bitter repentance, but her reception of me was chill and disdainful." "Poor Arnold!" said Pierre Raimond, with emotion; "no doubt you are weak, but this very weakness proceeds from a noble source; you fear to accuse Paula unjustly, and in truth there is something startling in saying to any one and that without certain proofs, 'You are a homicide, twice have you sought to assassinate me!'" "Yes! and especially when these overwhelming words are to be addressed to a woman you have passionately loved; and when, too, together with material and almost undeniable proofs, there are other moral truths quite to the contrary, and when, moreover, a secret voice, a hidden revelation says to you with irresistible authority, 'No, this woman is not guilty.' Oh, I assure you, it is a hell!--a hell!" "Now," said Bertha, "I can imagine why you have feigned derangement." "But," added Pierre Raimond, "a last attempt has left you no doubt." "None. The crime appeared then to me avowed; or, rather, as my love was exhausted, expended in these struggles and continual anguish, I had this time more courage than I had had before." "And you now no longer love her?" said Bertha.