“Stop,” he said. “You can have nothing to say; it is I who must relieve my bursting heart. Do you know what this is?” laying his finger on the bright stains. “This is my life-blood, and you have spilled it. When I came over sea I had a cough, and they told me I needed care, but I laughed them to scorn, for I said to myself, when once I am there, where her gentle hands can smooth the pain away and her sweet smile bring back the light to my eyes, all will be well. Do you know how it was with me during these years? When, after being hunted like a wild beast from wood to cavern, from hill to seaport, at last I stood by my _grandpère_, his heart was filled with joy--for I was his only descendant left on earth, and on me he leaned feeble and childish. I could not leave him for an hour without reproach; how could I come to you? Year after year he lingered, and although I starved for your smile, I believed in you, and God knows, had I suspected the awful truth of your unfaithfulness, I should have done the same. Heaven itself could not have lured me from that poor man, whose dying blessing is sounding in my ears this day. When I had laid him away, scarce three months ago, and found that the old chateau with its thousands of meters of rich garden and tillage was mine, I bounded for my passport, I dreamed of naught else than a return to build a family worthy of the saintly dead. “Would you know the rest? How I came in the dusk to the village street and crept in the shadow to your father’s door, feeling that I could not at once bear the blaze of your beauty. When I had seen the old man open the casement and sit in the moonlight with a child upon his knee, my heart misgave me. Fainting for food, for I had been too eager to eat, I crept back to the inn. Slowly I questioned the _garçon_ concerning the people of the village, and gradually the truth dawned--you were untrue! I was like a madman that night. I wore a track in the floor, I doubt not, with my restless pacing, and when day broke I went forth with a wild intent to do murderous work. All through the hours of sunlight I examined the mill, and the dwelling-place where a false heart was beating, and at night I planned to carry out my work of destruction. I would fire the mill and the house and take care that, so quick would leap the flames, that no escape would be possible. And if, through some strange fatality, my plot was defeated, there, in the fierce distraction of a great conflagration, I would rush upon you with my knife and stab you to your death! Yes,” he leaned forward and hissed the words, “the woman who has taught me that there is no faith, that God and honor and love are myths, ought to die by the hand of the man whom she has wrecked.” Again Dorcas stirred, and again he waved her into silence.