"Well, then, since you force me to speak out, you shall know all. The prince loves Bertha, and is beloved by her; you know the fierce jealousy of M. de Brévannes. He already hates the prince because he is your husband! Now he knows that he is loved by his wife, he hates him to very death. Suppose Bertha were so imprudent as to grant M. de Hansfeld an interview--innocent or guilty--voluntarily or by chance--no matter--M. de Brévannes is informed of it; surprises them by a stratagem; appearances are against them--what would he do, think you? What would he do?" "_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_" "What would he do? Why, he believes himself beloved by you; believes by making you free--you and himself by the double murder be might commit with impunity, he would obtain your hand----" "This is an infernal machination!" "Would you be free? Yes or no! And how far would you have participated in all this? Your husband deceives you for the wife of a man whom you hate. You cannot help this. This man kills them both! Are you his accomplice? Who or what prevents you from marrying M. de Morville? In what way even could he ever suspect you of having been mixed up in this machination? On the contrary, as I tell you, the interest and sympathies of the world would be with you." "You are mad; M. de Brévannes would hardly go to such an extremity if he believed himself beloved by me; and he would not surely dare to offer me his hand,--stained, imbrued with my husband's blood?" "Such is the man's proud jealousy, so ungoverned, so wild, that under no circumstances would he hesitate to kill his wife and her seducer; but as he loves you with all the more ardour as he believes himself madly adored by you, he does not doubt that you would brave all appearances, even to bestowing your hand upon him, and at this moment he is spreading the snare in which your husband and his wife must inevitably perish." "You have lost your senses. This man, vain as he is, can never believe himself beloved by me. I have scarcely said a few civil words to him in order to avert the evil he might do me." "But I have spoken for you!" "You have spoken for me?" Iris related to Madame de Hansfeld the history of the _Black Book_. Paula was overwhelmed, stupefied at this revelation. She could hardly credit such daring with such diabolical plotting. "It is most horrible!" she exclaimed. Iris looked at her mistress with a strange smile, and replied,-- "You had until now reproached me with acting without your consent. I was wrong. I wished to conceal from you the thread of the events which were in preparation, and you have forced me to disclose all to you. You will now repent it that you know all. Whilst you were in ignorance of this plot, its success was a stroke of chance for you by which you would have profited without compunction. Now you know all, if you do not reveal it, you become an accomplice."