"Brother--brother," said Victoria to me, "this has been a fatal night to us all--" "Listen further--above all to this," I said to my foster-sister, controlling my emotion: "At the very moment when I recognized the voice of my expiring wife, I saw by the light of the moon a woman perched on the casement of the window--" "A woman!" cried Victoria. "It is she probably whose voice deceived me," observed Sampso, "by announcing to me a message from Victoria." "I think so too," I replied; "and that woman, doubtlessly the accomplice of Victorin's crime, called to him, saying it was time to flee, and that she now was his, seeing he had kept the promise that he made to her." "A promise?" Again Victoria pondered. "What promise could he have made to her?" "To dishonor Ellen--" My foster-sister shuddered and said: "I repeat it, Schanvoch, this crime is wrapped in some horrible mystery. But who may that woman have been?" "One of the two Bohemian dancers who recently arrived at Mayence. Listen. Seeing that she received no answer from Victorin, and hearing the distant but approaching clamors of the soldiers who were angrily hastening to my house, she leaped down and vanished. A second after the rumbling of her cart informed me of her flight. In my despair it never occurred to me to pursue her. I knew I had just killed Ellen near the cradle of our son--Ellen, my dearly beloved wife!" I could not continue. Tears and sobs deprived me of speech. Sampso and Victoria remained silent. "This is a veritable abyss!" resumed the Mother of the Camps. "An abyss that my mind can not fathom. My son's crime is great--his intoxication, so far from excusing, only serves to render the deed all the more shameful. And yet, Schanvoch, you know not what love this poor child had for you--" "Say not so, Victoria," I murmured, hiding my face in my hands. "Say not so--my despair becomes only more distressing!" "It is not a reproach that I make, brother," replied Victoria. "Had I been a witness of my son's crime, I would have killed him with my own hands, to the end that he cease to dishonor his mother, and Gaul, that chose him chief. I refer to Victorin's love for you because I believe that, without his being in a state of inebriety and without some dark machination, he never would have committed such a misdeed--" "As for me, sister, I believe I see through this infernal plot--" "You do? Speak!" "Before the great battle of the Rhine an infamous calumny was spread over the camp against Victorin. The army's affection for him was being withdrawn. Your son's victory regained for him the soldiers' affection. See how that old calumny becomes to-day a frightful reality. Victorin's crime cost him his life--and also his son's. His stock is extinct. A new chief must now be chosen for Gaul. Is this not so?" "Yes, brother, all that is true."